
Class _JL£3jJ^ 
Book 'AlA 

COKfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



■BHE SOVt. OF" IRELAND. By W. J. 

Lockington, S. J. New York: The 
Macmillan Company. 

For this outlook over Ireland Father 
Lockington went up into the high 
places of his own mind and spirit. His 
quest was the soul- of Ireland — lhat 
part which has endured, as [re! 
through time and change. It is. 
as a true lover of the soil that he 
looks off over the island whose face 
is. to him, move beautiful 

of any other land under the sun. 
he is a poet, as well as a love,'. 
Then, in infinite affection for the 
sons of Erin and in perfect sympathy 
With them, he retraces the high\yay 
of their history, to discover again 
ihat which has sustained them along 
the road, and to count, once more, 
those things which they have held 
steadfast, despite the manifold bur- 
dens of their journey. He names their 
fJethsemanes— -many and deep. He 
points to their prolonged Calvary, and 
to their triumphant resurrection. The 
Lssioned and eloquent story is a 
song of praise to the Catholic, faith, 
and it is this faith that stands here 
as the soul of Ireland, enduring 
through ages of darkness to' its im- 
pending rebirth in the image of its 
olden splendor and in the promise of 
a glorious future. Catholic sons and 
(laughters, both within Ireland and 
without, will rejoice in this vision. An 
introduction by G. K. Chesterton in- 
dorses, in eristic vein, the ex- 

d sentiments of this consecr: 
son of the church. 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE 
SOUL OF IRELAND 



BY 

W. J. LOCKINGTON, S.J. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 

G. K. CHESTERTON 



jfteto gorfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1920 

All rights reserved 



Mil* 

.u 



COPYKIBHT, 1920, 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotrped. Published, January, 1920 



-3 1^20 



\ 5 6 1 3 9 1 



/vm i 



1 



TO 
MARY MYDEN DHEELISH 

MOTHER OF 
THE MOTHERS OF IRELAND 



CONTENTS 

AND SOMETHING IN THE NATURE OF A 
PRELUDE 



PAGE 

Introduction by G. K. Chesterton xi 

The resurrection of Ireland, of which Father Lock- 
ington writes here with so much spirit and eloquence, 
is really a historical event that has the appearance 
of a miracle. . . . Many Englishmen do not see the 
point; simply because many Englishmen are in this 
matter quite ignorant. . . . They do not happen to 
know how utterly Ireland was crushed; with what 
finality and fundamental oblivion the nation was 
once numbered with the dead. 



Author's Preface xvii 

Once let the heart of the people of England be 
touched by the truth regarding Ireland, their sense 
of justice will ensure that Ireland will take proper 
place, as sister with sister, and no longer be the Cin- 
derella of the Empire. 



CHAPTER I 
Ireland's Secret 



The divine gift of faith, that Saint Patrick threw 
like a white mantle over the whole land, covers it 
to-day as pure and untarnished as when he walked 
the earth. . . . All prayers of His loved and loving 
people. 

vii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER II PAGB 

Life in the City 8 

I saw them in their poor homes, and wondered at 
the vivid faith that gilded and ennobled their pov- 
erty and trials. 

CHAPTER III 
Life in the Country 21 

They are a reserved people, reticent with stran- 
gers. . . . They have a quiet, gentle dignity that is 
all their own, and a native refinement that is remark- 
able. 

CHAPTER IV 
The Exodus 33 

Pestilence and Famine lay like a pall over Ireland 
and from beneath the blackness her poor children 
fled in terror. This exodus was the scattering broad- 
cast of a crucified nation. 

CHAPTER V 
The Mass Rock 44 

There are many glorious monuments to-day in Ire- 
land that speak eloquently of her sufferings in those 
dark days ... to me by far the most touching is the 
granite block, a broad table of gray stone, with the 
sacred name of Jesus carved deep; that silent table 
... the Mass Rock. 

CHAPTER VI 
Christmas in Ireland 55 

On Christmas Eve a multitude of new stars blazes 
from coast to coast in Ireland . . . the great Christ- 
mas candle shining in the window of every home 
lighting the land for the angels to guide the Christ 
Child thither. 

viii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII page 

Month of Mary . . 64 

This wealth of spiritual love, that wells up and 
overflows in Irish hearts, keeps all earthly love pure 
and good. Woman's spiritual work is understood, 
Mary stands over by her side, and she is held in deep 
reverence. This high ideal of womanhood has kept 
the nation faithful and strong. 

CHAPTER VIII 
Corpus Christi in Ireland 74 

I stole a glance at my Saxon friend as we were 
passing that cabin door . . . openly and unashamed 
he was weeping. " I have never seen anything like 
it," he said to me afterwards. " Faith, it's not Faith, 
but actual vision that God has blessed these people 
with." 

CHAPTER IX 
The Nuns of Ireland 85 

These joyous-hearted women have sweetened and 
made endurable by their presence that former monu- 
ment of ineptitude, the poorhouse. . . . But not in Ire- 
land alone do they labor, they carry the torch of faith 
to every land. . . . The whole world is their home, 
and all mankind their brother. 

CHAPTER X 

SOGGARTH AROON 97 

The high sea-cliff saw them bound back to back, 
and pushed to death on the black rocks below ; trapped 
in the Mass Cave, they died in a reek of smoke ; sold 
to the slave trader and transported, they worked till 
death under the lash of their owner; from end to 
end of the land their bodies swung in the shadow of 
the " Priest tree." Every gallows in the country 
shook as priest after priest climbed the ladders at the 
bidding of their would-be exterminators. 
ix 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XI PAGE 

Mothers of Ireland no 

Besides those mothers who have given their chil- 
dren for God's work, other mothers there are, parted 
from their children by the accidents of life, who sit at 
home wearily waiting for the sound of a step that 
never falls . . . when darkness instead of light is sent 
to them across the sea. . . . 

CHAPTER XII 
Martyrdom of Ireland 122 

Through all this horror of bloodshed and oppres- 
sion, one main end was aimed at — the extirpation of 
the Catholic Faith. 

CHAPTER XIII 
Irish Ideals 136 

Those who try to measure the progress of this peo- 
ple by earthly standards find qualities as immeasura- 
ble as the fourth dimension, and actions that nullify 
ordinary human wisdom, for they square only with 
the infinite. 

CHAPTER XIV 
Irish Joyousness 151 

Religion properly understood and practiced is a 
spring of unending joyousness. . . . Ireland is the 
only country that has a musical instrument as the na- 
tional emblem. 

CHAPTER XV 
Triumph of Ireland 166 

The Catholic Faith, as potent in the twentieth as in 
the third century, is the secret of Ireland's triumph, 
and it will be the secret of her final glory. This has 
not made her less loyal to worldly authority, but on 
the contrary has made her loyal with a selfless loy- 
alty so rare that it can be understood only by those 
who know the Catholic heart of Ireland. 
x 



INTRODUCTION 
By G. K. Chesterton 

It would be difficult to murder a man in a fit of 
absence of mind; still more difficult to bury him in 
the garden in the same abstracted and automatic 
mood. And if the dead man got up out of the grave 
and walked into the house a week afterwards, the 
absent-minded murderer might well feel constrained 
to collect some of his wandering thoughts, and take 
some notice of the event. But communal action, 
though real and responsible enough, is never quite so 
vivid as personal action. And very many respecta- 
ble English people are quite unconscious that this has 
been the exact history of their own relations with the 
Irish people. The Englishman has never realized 
the enormity and simplicity of his own story and its 
sequel. It was like something done in a dream; 
because when he did it he was thinking of some- 
thing else or trying to think of something else. 
That the slayer should try to forget the body he 
has buried may appear natural; that he should fail 
to know it again, when it came walking down the 
street, will appear more singular. A cynic might say 
that England need not be concerned about having 
killed Ireland; but might well feel some concern 
about having failed to kill her. But cynics are sel- 

xi 



INTRODUCTION 

dom subtle enough to be realists; and the truer way 
of stating it is that the whole atmosphere of modern 
Europe, and especially of modern England, has been 
unfavorable to the telling of a plain tale. Euphe- 
misms and excuses are so elaborate that it is hard 
for a man to find out what has really happened, even 
what has happened to him. It is hard for him to say 
in plain words what has been done, even when he 
has done it himself. 

The resurrection of Ireland, of which Father Lock- 
ington writes here with so much spirit and eloquence, 
is really a historical event that has the appearance 
of a miracle. That is, it is one of a class of undis- 
puted facts, not actually in form supernatural, but 
so unique as almost to force any one, however rela- 
tionalistic, to an explanation at least transcendental. 
If the Christian faith is not meant in some fashion 
to revive and be reunited in Europe, I for one can 
make no mortal sense o»f what has happened in Ire- 
land. If the Catholic creeds are not to survive, I 
cannot imagine why Ireland has survived. Many 
Englishmen do not see the point; simply because 
many Englishmen are in this matter quite ignorant; 
especially well-educated Englishmen. They do not 
happen to know how utterly Ireland was crushed; 
with what finality and fundamental oblivion the na- 
tion was one numbered with the dead. A man in the 
middle of the Age of Reason, the enlightened and 
humanitarian eighteenth century, would have been 
more astounded by the present prosperity of the 
Catholic peasantry than by a revival of the commerce 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

of Carthage. It would have been to him, I will not 
say like the return of King James, but like the return 
of King Arthur. It would have been incredible. 
He would as soon have expected to hear that At- 
lantis was really re-arisen from the sea, trading and 
making treaties with America, as to hear that this 
other island in the Atlantic was increasing in agricul- 
tural wealth while retaining its ancient superstitions. 
The transfiguration happens to have been spread 
over two or three generations, so that the shock of 
it is broken; the individuals who saw the death are 
not those who see the rising from the dead. But to 
any one who has learned just enough of history to 
know that it consists of human beings, to any one 
with enough imaginative patience to follow a story 
clearly from start to finish, the story has been as sim- 
ple and astonishing as the plain parable of the corpse 
in the garden with which I began this brief note. A 
working way of putting it is to say that sixty years 
ago English newspapers talked hopefully of there be- 
ing no Irish Catholics in a few years; and there are 
now more than six millions in the United States 
alone. In a word, the one real crime that England 
ever attempted has most fortunately failed; and not 
only England but also Europe has now to deal with 
a certain recognizable religious civilization, which 
men may like or dislike, fear or favor, but which is 
as solid a fact as France. Even those who cannot 
share Father Lockington's natural enthusiasm for 
the theological survival will be wise to note all the 
facts he can adduce about the social success. Judged 



INTRODUCTION 

from a wholly detached and rationalized standpoint, 
the reality remains: that the one people in Western 
Europe which has taken the old form of the Chris- 
tian Religion quite seriously, enduring persecution 
from without and asceticism from within, has before 
our very eyes turned a sudden corner and stepped 
into a place in the sun. We can make what we will 
of this fact; but it is there. 

There are but a few of these historical events 
which while natural in mode seem to be almost su- 
pernatural in meaning. One of them is the mysteri- 
ous international position of the Jews. Another 
was the historical mission of Joan of Arc. And 
there goes with that great name a certain hint of 
hope and consolation even in the case still at issue: 
the long and tragic entanglement of England and 
Ireland. The English were the enemies of Joan of 
Arc; but it is quite inadequate to say that they are 
not longer her enemies; they are all her quite enthu- 
siastic admirers. They are, if possible, even more 
enthusiastic than the French. I do not despair of 
the day when the other senseless misunderstanding 
shall pass in the same fashion; and a patriotic Eng- 
lishman shall no longer be expected to feel a preju- 
dice in the one case than in the other. I hope to see 
the day when he will no more dream of denying that 
anybody is oppressed in Ireland than that anybody 
was burnt at Rouen. He will not treat the former 
torture as more trivial because it lasted longer; or 
as more obscure because it affected many more peo- 
ple. He will do what he does with tragedy of the 

xiv 



INTRODUCTION 

fifteenth century; he will prefer to prove that he is 
now generous, rather than that he was always just. 
Horrible as is the history, I know my own people 
are capable of such generosity, and I should be 
ashamed to write anywhere on this subject without 
seeking to arouse it. 

G. K. Chesterton. 



xv 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 



CHAPTER I 

IRELAND 

TRELAND. What a history of fearless fighting 
-■• for God and country that name records ! It tells 
of patient suffering strengthened by glorious faith, 
of days of triumph unrivalled, and of days of dark- 
ness when to love her and to love God was death. 

Yet ever and always that name tells of a nation 
loved by God, and steadfastly loving in return, mak- 
ing this deep love of Him the dominant character- 
istic of its national life. 

Placed on the edge of the Old World, Ireland is 
the outpost of Western Europe. Insignificant in 
area, her power is world-wide — for she is the 
mother of a civilization that has encircled and up- 
lifted the earth. Clad in beauty, she sits ever listen- 
ing to the voices of her exiled children that come to 
her across the thunder of the seas. 

She is a land of green plain and blue mountain 
and purple bogland; of deep valleys carpeted with 
luscious grass, where the lazy kine stand knee-deep; 
of grassed hills, cut into squares by the dark thorn 

[i] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

hedges that blossom with white may spray; of 
cool pine clumps, in the shade of which the cozy 
cottages nestle. Across her bosom, running silently 
between hawthorn and willow hedges, the slender 
boreens, leafy avenues vibrant with bird-life, go 
slipping past white-walled, brown-roofed cottages, 
set in lakes of yellow corn. On they wind over low- 
banked streamlets, that net the land with silver 
threads, and run and join and flow to where the 
green of her fields is kissed by the white lips of the 
sea. She is a land that to know is to love — for he 
that knows Ireland always loses his heart to her. 

One clear morning in early spring I stood on the 
summit of one of the highest of her mountains — 
Galteemore, the cloud-piercing giant of the Galtees. 
I looked upon a scene of exquisite beauty. Before 
me lay the golden vale of Limerick, stretching for 
leagues across to where the mountains of Clare 
stand, keeping guard on Ireland's western seaboard. 
Below them the sun glistened on the gray waves 
of the Atlantic; beyond them to the north, Lough 
Derg lay sleeping in their shadow, and by their feet, 
dividing plain from mountain, and uniting lake and 
ocean, swept the rolling flood of the silver Shannon. 

To the south the mighty mountains of Kerry 
fling high in the air peaks whose broad bases are 
fringed by the foam of the restless sea. Turning to 
the east, lit by the rays of the rising sun, I saw the 
fertile plain of Munster, dotted with villages and 
towns, stretch out to where, on the horizon, sea and 
sky and plain meet. There on the water's edge, 

[2] 



IRELAND 

from Cork to Carnsore, lay Ireland's southern 
boundary. 

Northward, towered bluff Keeper Hill, the 
sentinel of central Ireland, looking down on the 
great plain that goes sweeping to the north, past 
Cashel of the kings, past Kilkenny of the martyrs, 
on to where, lost in the dim blue of the bending 
sky, the Slieve Blooms spring up to keep guard over 
the central plateau of Erin. 

It is a scene almost unequalled on earth. Poets 
have stood entranced and writers been lost in ad- 
miration of the beauty that shines forth on every 
side. Let us though be on our guard and not be 
blinded by this surface glory of Ireland. For he 
who sees only this natural beauty, striking though it 
be, is as one who thinks he gains a knowledge of the 
soul of his friend by a careful study of the texture 
of his garments. 

Men come to Ireland seeking the secret of the 
power that she possesses of ever holding the love of 
her children. They climb her mountains, and gaze 
upon her lakes and valleys and hills. They look 
upon the rare beauty of the bay of her capital city; 
they rush to where Derry goes creeping over the 
swelling banks of the Foyle; they walk beneath the 
towering pines of Tore Mountain, and their voices 
break the hallowed calm of Killarney. You will 
find them climbing Ballaghbeama, and sketching 
the massive mountains of Kerry. Along her rivers 
they move from the Corrib to the Slaney and from 
the Blackwater to the Bann. They are looking at 

[3] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Ireland, speaking of Ireland, judging Ireland, and 
they do not know her nor understand her. 

The heart of Ireland is beating strongly, the pulse 
of Ireland is throbbing vigorously, but they hear it 
not. Engrossed in her material beauty, her gar- 
ment woven by God, they cannot see the beauty of 
the soul of Ireland, the beauty that is the root of the 
strength of Ireland, and the tie that binds unbreak- 
ably to her the hearts of her sons. 

Come with me, dear reader, and in imagination 
stand on that mountain peak I spoke of, and let us 
together seek this wonderful beauty of the soul of 
Ireland. 

Turn to the west. " What," I ask you, " is it 
that stands gleaming white against the dark Clare 
hills? " You know it not! Aye, neither do those 
hurrying aliens. It is the spire of the cathedral of 
Limerick, flung aloft by loving Irish hearts, to hold 
on high the cross of Christ. Look at the plain be- 
tween us and that cross! Heed not the mere nat- 
ural beauty. What is it that you see, crowning 
every hill, and springing from every hollow, the 
center of every town and village? The same cross 
of Calvary, lifted high by fervent faith. 

Here at your feet, across the glen of Aherlow, 
towers the spire of Tipperary town, far-famed, 
fighting Tipperary. Beyond it from the bosom of 
the plain springs the slender shaft of God's home 
in Nenagh. Look at the Rock of Cashel! Cashel 
of the kings ! Cashel, hallowed by the presence of 
St. Patrick, baptizing her king. Cast your eyes 

[4] 



IRELAND 

southward. That smoke, rising by the banks of the 
winding Blackwater, comes from the chimneys of 
the monastery of Mount Melleray, the home of un- 
ceasing prayer. Beyond, on the edge of the ocean, 
are the cities of southern Munster, clustering around 
their churches. 

Wherever we turn, to the north and south and 
east and west of this glorious panorama, stand the 
tabernacles of God. " Behold the tabernacles of 
God with men, and He will dwell with them, and 
they shall be His people, and God Himself with 
them shall be their God." On every square mile of 
that plain God has a dwelling. 

And so it is through the length and breadth of 
the land. Journey to the Slieve Blooms that you 
see on the northern horizon, cross to Connemara, 
climb the lofty mountains of Donegal, walk through 
the valleys of Armagh — everywhere you will see 
the cross-crowned spire, telling of Ireland's King, 
enthroned below. From His altar He rules, watch- 
ing and guarding, while the whole country is filled 
with the sound of His praises, a mighty paean, sung 
by a people that never has denied Him and never 
has forgotten Him. 

Nor is this condition of to-day only. See that 
mighty pillar, springing from the center of Lough 
Derg. It is the round tower of Iniscaltra, deserted 
and silent on the little island that fourteen hundred 
years ago rang with the voices of those who came 
from afar to sit at the feet of Columba and Caimin. 

Follow the curving bank of the Shannon as it 

[5] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

runs westward, and the eye falls upon another great 
column. It stands on one of the reaches of the 
Shannon, on Scattery Island. Around it lie the ruins 
of six of the churches of St. Senan. 

Turn to the south, and there a third stands high 
on the hill of Ardmore, a monument to St. Declan, 
a contemporary of St. Patrick. Three of the round 
towers of Ireland, telling of the servants of God who 
gathered at their bases in days far in the bygone 
centuries. They heard the Mass bell of St. Patrick 
and St. Munchin and St. Declan, and to-day they 
still stand, silent testimonies of an undying faith. 

This is the secret of the power that ties the hearts 
of her children to her. There you have the reason 
why Ireland is Ireland. We sometimes hear the 
phrase, " A nation once again." I marvel that an 
Irish pencil wrote it. Why, Ireland has always 
been a nation, and a nation that has come thunder- 
ing down the centuries, unswervingly following the 
footsteps of God. 

Ireland is Ireland in her Catholicity and her 
Catholic history. The divine gift of faith, that St. 
Patrick threw like a white mantle over the whole 
land, covers it to-day as pure and untarnished as 
when he walked on earth. Wicked men strove to 
rend and sully it; they did but beautify it with the 
glorious red of the martyr's blood. All through the 
land Christ sits enthroned amid the ceaseless prayers 
of His loved and loving people. 

This is the secret of her undying vitality. This 
vivid, fervent love of God, gilding and ennobling 

[6] 



IRELAND 

her poverty, strengthening her in danger, comfort- 
ing her in sorrow, uniting her to the tabernacle of 
the Crucified One, is the heart-beat of Ireland. 
God bless her! 



[7] 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE IN THE CITY 

TRELAND, as we have said, is Ireland because of 
A her Catholicity. Therefore, he who would un- 
derstand life in hvland must take full cognizance of 
this fact, for it is this that is the leading character- 
istic of the nation. The comprehending eye of faith 
alone can see the force that has kept her national 
life pulsing strong through days when death seemed 
inevitable; the only force that will nourish life when 
(he dangerous tide of prosperity flows strong across 
her hallowed plains. 

Ireland has always been governed by the Ten 
Commandments. These — the only guide to man- 
hood and nationhood — have been the buoy that 
upheld hi r in the ebb-tide of adversity, and will be 
the anchor to steady her in the flood-tide of pros- 
perity. 

The stranger who enters her gates finds himself 
startled and delighted beyond measure at the won- 
derful atmosphere of faith that hangs over the whole 
hind. The gilt of St. Patrick moves and vivifies 
all. 

One autumn morning in the late nineties, between 
dusk and dawn, I stood, looking from the deck of 
our rushing vessel for my first glimpse of Erin. 
Somewhere, over the sea rim, hidden in the shadow, 

[8] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

lay the land whence came our faith. By my side 
stood a returning exile, " a finibus terrae," who, 
after thirty-five years of absence, had come back to 
the love of his heart. His white hair blown back by 
the breeze that had kissed the holy hills of Ireland, 
he stood with parted lips, eagerly gazing into the 
fast-vanishing shadow. Soon I heard his cry — 
"There she is: God be blessed," and before us, 
still hidden in the half light, loomed the eastern 
mountain masses of the land of St. Patrick. 

The moments pass, and, as our vessel speeds for- 
ward, gloom gives place to gray, and gray to gold, 
as the sun springs from the sea behind us, and the 
dark shadows flee before his level rays, that bathe 
all the sleeping land in golden fire. The sea runs 
in between two promontories laughing down at it 
as it goes narrowing to a silver strip, that hides 
itself and slips sparkling through the heart of a city, 
nestling at the foot of the mountains. It is Dublin 
Bay and Dublin city. 

" Th' ana'm an Dhia. But there it is — 
The dawn on the hills of Ireland! 
God's angels lifting the night's black veil 
From the fair, sweet face of my sireland ! 

Ireland, isn't it grand you look — 
Like a bride in her rich adornin'? 

And with all the pent-up love of my heart 

1 bid you the top o' the mornin' ! " 

I looked at my exile, and saw his knuckles whiten 
as he gripped the rail of the vessel. 

[9] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

We pass under the dark brown hill of Howth, that 
stands sentinel at the harbor mouth, marking, now 
as in the days of St. Lawrence, the tide of life that 
flows and ebbs upon the bay. To the south and 
west the mountains of Dublin and Wicklow go roll- 
ing away, range on range — past the Golden Spears, 
those shapely twin shafts that guard the beautiful 
\ale of Shanganagh, "sweetest and greenest of 
vales," — on to Lugnaquilla, the giant guardian of 
Erin's eastern boundary. 

The blackness of the early morning has gone from 
them and given place to numberless shades of brown 
and green and gray. Past them we glide, past 
Clontarf there on the right, past the Tolka, until our 
vessel goes stealing in among the houses, and comes 
to rest in the very center of the city. 

My white-haired friend, exiled now no longer, 
whose years seem to have fallen from him as he 
touches once again the earth of his motherland, 
cries to me — " Come, and I'll show you something 
worth getting up early to see." 

Along the quays, and down Dublin's main artery 
— O'Connell Street — he drags me. He stops not 
to look at the splendid monument to the Liberator 
that adorns the center of the street, but walks 
rapidly on, climbs the winding steps of the Pillar, 
and steps out upon the lofty platform. With a 
gesture that embraces every point of the compass, 
he exclaims, "Look there: isn't she splendid?" 
Truly " she " is. Dublin — Ireland's queen city — 
seated on green plain, and flanked by sea and moun- 

[10] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

tain, sits serenely by the banks of the placid Liffey, 
that comes curving in from the west, and moves 
beneath her bridges, on to meet the bay. My 
friend makes sure that I shall see all. From Kil- 
liney Hill to Tallaght, and round by the Phcenix 
Park, to Ireland's Eye, nothing escapes him. 

It is a city of churches. From the pro-cathedral 
at our feet, to Dalkey, nearly a dozen miles away to 
the south, and to the equidistant Howth in the east, 
the spires and domes spring from almost every 
street. To the west is the closely crowded tenement 
district behind the Four Courts — a maze of lanes 
and alleys. Here in all directions God finds a home 
among His Irish poor. St. Michan's, the Ann 
Street church, sits amid its densely crowded lanes, 
and by its side the George's Hill convent, doing 
marvelous work among the poor. Scarce a stone's 
throw away the saintly sons of St. Dominic labor, 
side by side with the untiringly devoted apostles of 
St. Francis. Following the monitory hand of my 
friend, I see, closer to the Liffey, the massive shapes 
of " Arran Quay " and " Adam and Eve's." 

Truly, God is not neglected here. Every church 
door is open, and every door swings perpetually at 
the touch of the hands of an endless stream of 
worshipers. Every man that passes by raises his 
hat, and every woman bows or curtsies to their 
King within. 

We find ourselves at 1 1 A.M. outside the door of 
the pro-cathedral, — " We must hear Mass," my 
friend declares. It is an ordinary week-day morn- 

["] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

ing. We could barely push open the swing-door. 
Judge of my astonishment when I saw the cause of 
the obstruction. Mass was being celebrated at the 
high altar at the far end of the great building, and 
before me, from the very door to the altar rail, 
stretched a sea of heads bent in reverent adoration. 
The contrast from the busy rush of life in the streets 
outside was astounding. The unrest of the world 
ceased and yielded place to the silent peace of God. 
All was still, save where, with fervent ejaculations, 
glowing souls poured forth their love of Christ. 

Oh, what prayer and what intense fervor was 
theirs! Christ, the loved God-Man, was on the 
altar, in the hands of their priest, and it was as if 
the surging love in their hearts leaped all barriers 
of sense as they knelt before Him and greeted Him. 

Round the door and for some distance into the 
crowded cathedral the congregation consists of fish- 
women, flower-girls, and vendors of street wares. 
At the sound of the bell, warning of His coming, 
I knelt as best I could among these. All were ob- 
livious of everything save Christ. 

By my side knelt an old lady — a brown shawl 
drawn modestly over her head and shoulders. A 
white pleated cap, beneath which her gray hair was 
smoothed, peeped from the encircling shawl that 
framed the oval of her face. It was a face of dulled 
ivory, meshed and seamed by lines cut by the chisel 
of time, yet a face beautiful with a beauty not of 
earth. Eternal calmness and resignation sat upon 
her brow, and the clear light of purity shone through 

[12] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

those eyes that are gazing at her God enthroned 
on the altar. Mass for her was a colloquy of intense 
and reverent joy, and she made it with lips moving 
in passionate prayer, utterly unmindful of those 
around her. 

One could only kneel by her side and in all hu- 
mility pray God for an understanding of Him such 
as she possesses. 

Talk with these dear old souls as they come out, 
slipping the well-worn rosaries into their pockets, 
or maybe standing for a moment to finish a " dicket " 
before taking up their baskets. Dare to hint that 
it must be difficult to find time to get to Mass, and 
you had better be prepared to beat a hasty retreat, 
for many of them have developed a remarkable de- 
gree of proficiency in rapid manipulation of the un- 
ruly member. 

" Yerra," said one to me, with a look of comical 
anger; "d'ye take me for a haythin, that I'd be- 
gredge a half-hour to God Almighty, whin I can see 
Him so aisy? God sind ye sinse," and she moved 
off with a pitying nod of tolerance. 

" Thim say-rovers, what have they in their heads 
at all, at all? " I heard her remark to a familiar 
who joined her at the foot of the steps. 

Experience showed that the crowd that thronged 
the cathedral had its counterpart in the other 
churches of the city. For instance, turn to the 
left as you leave the cathedral steps, climb the hill, 
and before you are the massive pillars of the church 
of St. Francis Xavier. Here, daily, Masses begin 

[13] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

at 6 A.M., and end at 11.30. An eminent Roman 
ecclesiastic, on a visit to Dublin, was asked to give 
Communion during his Mass in this church. He did 
so, but when a quarter of an hour had elapsed and the 
people were still surging forward, he became alarmed 
and sent the altar boy for a priest to help him. 

" I never saw anything like it in my life," he de- 
clared, " and so many men! " In that church alone 
full 400,000 Communions are given yearly. Small 
wonder that the people of Ireland smile under their 
crosses when Christ thus shares them with them. 

To return for a moment to our street vendors of 
the cathedral. To the passer-by they may seem, 
as they trudge along, bent beneath their baskets, 
negligible units in the life of the city, but God and 
His angels mark the pearls of His praise that drop 
from their lips as they thread those winding streets. 

Such splendid souls, hidden beneath an unassum- 
ing exterior! 

Years afterwards, when privileged to go amongst 
them as a missionary, I saw them in their poor 
homes, and wondered at the vivid faith that gilded 
and ennobled their poverty and trials. The grace 
of God was fairly blazing among them. I saw them 
crowding to the communion rail every morning, and 
filling the church every evening. I saw them in their 
homes — so often only a room with the boards of 
the floor for a bed. Yet none so poor but boasted a 
statue or picture of the Man of Sorrows and Love, 
or of His Blessed Mother, their Myden Dheelish. 

[14] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

It was inexpressibly touching to see their undying 
love for the Mother of God. In every home is a 
little shrine to her, decked by loving hands and 
poverty's big heart. A tiny lamp glows before it, 
and often this is the only light in the room. 

It tore one's very heartstrings to enter those poor 
rooms, and, by the flickering light of the shrine 
lamp, see our Lady of Perpetual Succor looking 
across the room at a worn and gasping saint lying 
paralyzed and pain-twisted; or to see our Lady of 
Lourdes trying to comfort a poor widow as she 
kneels at the desolate hearth, endeavoring to heat 
water at a fire made with the only fuel she can get — ■ 
a handful of coal garnered from a passing wagon 
— to feed the three little children that cling round 
her crying with cold and hunger. And impossible 
as it may seem, our Blessed Lady does accomplish 
her task — for everywhere one meets with an al- 
most incredible resignation which finds expression in 
" Welcome be the most holy will of God." Their 
awful poverty but purifies and refines their souls, 
and gives them a clearer vision of the infinite. 

It was in a Dublin parish that I met an old lady 
who had attended a proselytizing medicine mission. 
Those who go are forced to hear a sermon and 
hymns before the distribution of the coveted medi- 
cine, and, of course, these places are a source of 
strong temptation to penniless people with children 
or relatives dangerously ill. 

" What, in the name of God, woman, were you 

[15] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

doing in such a place, and you a Catholic? " I asked 
her. 

"Ah, father, but I haven't a penny — and poor 
Molly, so the doctor told me, would die if I didn't 
get her medicine ! " 

" And so you went and sat there and joined that 
crowd? " 

" Wisha, father, don't be vexin' yerself," she ex- 
postulated, with a triumphant air of finality, " wasn't 
I prayin' agin' him the whole time wid me rosary! " 

God bless them, 'tis hard to blame them. 

As a priest moves through the streets, it is " God 
bless you, father! " on all sides. Each one of the 
numberless children, who positively swarm through 
the streets, their only playground, deems it his or 
her bounden duty to " raise the cap " or " curchey " 
to the soggarth. 

"Come on, Maggie, here's the priest;" and 
babies are snatched up and wee brothers hauled 
along with impetuous haste by little maidens, who 
live their lives in his path, and with a " God bless 
y', father! " curtsy before him. 

Passing one day through an alley in the Coombe, 
I saw two boys playing in the roadway. They were 
evidently brothers, one about seven years of age, 
and the other about five. Their raiment was 
simple; each wore a multi-colored pair of knicker- 
bockers, held in position over an openwork shirt, 
by a single length of string passed over one shoulder. 
The elder boy wore a cap, the younger had none, 
the want being supplied by a fine shock of hair. 

[16] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

On seeing me, the elder exclaimed, " Hey, 
Michael, come on, here's the priest," and both ran 
to the side of the road to meet me. 

When I came up, "God bless ye, father! " came 
from the boy in command, as he raised his tattered 
cap. 

The smaller boy, meantime, stood bashfully by, 
evidently embarrassed, and gently stroking one ankle 
with the toes of the other foot, while, with bent 
head, he gave a troubled glance at me. 

The bigger boy, wondering at the absence of greet- 
ing from No. 2, looked sharply round, and on the 
instant showed that he was master of the situation. 

He realized at once the quandary of his compan- 
ion — he had no cap to lift in salutation. 

Discovery and command were almost in the same 
instant; without a moment's hesitation he jumped 
at him and yelled, " Why don't ye rise yer hair to 
the priest, Michael?" 

Michael's embarrassment fell from him at once, 
the caressing toes were planted firmly on the ground, 
the bent head lifted, and, eagerly grasping his thick 
forelock, that tumbled almost to his eyes, he " riz " 
with a belated but fervent " God bless ye, father! " 

This is a people whose church is their home. 
They are carried into it at baptism, and their feet 
ever turn to it until they are carried in death to rest 
for the night before the God whom they loved. 

I have dwelt thus far only upon Dublin, because 
its state is typical of all Irish cities. From Derry 
to Cork and from Wicklow to Galway is the same 

[17] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

manifestation of fervent faith. Stand at the door 
of St. Eugene's cathedral, towering high over 
Derry city, and see the crowds that go pouring into 
that splendid pile. They are people of curt, straight 
speech, with hearts of gold, fire tried. Below you 
is another crowd passing in to the Long Tower 
church. Cross the Foyle to the Waterside, and 
again you find a multitude hurrying to the altar 
throne of their God. 

Would you know the Catholic spirit of Galway? 
Come with me through the winding streets of that 
quaint old town, with its Spanish mansions, down 
by the rushing Corrib, past the black wharves that, 
alas! stretch hungrily out to see, waiting, waiting, 
waiting. Let us go beyond the Dominican church, 
stand at the turn of the Claddagh village, and look 
upon the wide expanse of Galway Bay. Before us 
the bluff hills of Clare go shouldering out into the 
ocean as if striving to reach those glorious Conne- 
mara hills that tower in the heavens to the north- 
west. Out on the harbor moves a fleet of boats to- 
wards the open sea. These are the fishing smacks 
by which our hardy toilers of the sea win their liveli- 
hood. Note well him who stands on the prow of the 
foremost boat. It is a vested priest, with book and 
cross. To-day is the opening of the fishing season, 
and these men will not lower a net or line until their 
priest has called down solemnly the blessing of God 
on their boats and on the sea. 

Do you wish to see more of life in old Ireland's 
cities? Let us turn inland, and go speeding down 

[18] 



LIFE IN THE CITY 

the long valley at the back of the Clare mountains, 
past Ardrahan and Gort and Ennis, south to where, 
as we slip over the shoulder of the Cratloe Hills, we 
see Limerick seated by the Shannon's rolling flood. 
Heed not the Treaty Stone lying in the shadow of 
St. Munchin's, nor the winding lanes of famed Gar- 
ryowen, wreathing round St. John's cathedral; but 
come with me on any Monday night of the year, and 
watch the crowd of men that comes pouring down 
the main street, filling it from side to side, as though 
some mighty meeting had just dissolved. Aye, a 
mighty meeting has just ended. Walk with me to 
the corner of the hill beyond, round which this 
splendid tide of human life comes flowing, and see 
the meeting-place. It is the church of St. Alphon- 
sus, of the Redemptorist Fathers, " the holy fa- 
thers," as they are affectionately called throughout 
the city. There has been a meeting of their men's 
sodality, or rather, of one-half of their sodality. 
On Tuesday night the other half will come together. 
No wonder that the stately church cannot hold all 
at one meeting — for that sodality numbers 6,000 
men. 

What a splendid testimony to the faith of Limer- 
ick! 

Nor is this all. Come to the church on any 
Wednesday evening you choose, and you will find an- 
other army, lively and noisy, as it pours out in a 
rushing stream — the sodality of Limerick boys, who 
fill the church to overflowing. 

And so it ever is — in every Irish city. Every 
[19] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

true Irish heart is chained by the chain of love to 
the tabernacle door, and if at times, man-like, they 
err, like penitent children to a parent, they come 
back. Worn and weary, maybe, they pass in their 
hundred thousands under the shadow of the church 
door, and, touched by the cleansing hands of Christ, 
come forth purified and strengthened, to take up 
life's burden. 

Blessed are the guardian angels of the children of 
such cities. 



[20] 



L 



CHAPTER III 

LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

EAVING the towns, we are now in the open 
spaces of Holy Ireland, and as we move along 
the roads we see further proof of the fact that we 
are among a people whose lives are lived in the 
presence of God. 

The magic green of Ireland that colors the plains 
goes creeping to the bog edge and up the mountain- 
side, to where the brown of the heather meets it. 
The country-side is dotted with cozy cabins, com- 
fortable farmhouses, and solid stone mansions, 
among which the people move at their daily toil. 
Across the fields they go, tending their crops and 
cattle, and on the mountain-side they guard their 
sheep; they are delving in the brown bog and work- 
ing at the edge of reed-ringed lakes — turquoise 
gems, dropped by the hand of our Creator upon the 
green bosom of Erin. 

They are a reserved people, reticent with stran- 
gers; but those who gain their hearts find hidden be- 
hind this reticence, as by a barrier, a mine of rare 
qualities. They have a quiet, gentle dignity that is 
all their own, and a native refinement that is remark- 
able. This is a source of wonder to many, but the 
observant Catholic soon learns whence these gifts 

[2.] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

come. They come from a close and continued living 
with Christ and His Blessed Mother — the Virgin 
and the Virgin's Son. To this main cause another 
may be added, namely, the history of their land and 
Faith, as shown forth by the ruins and relics among 
which they pass their lives. These lie before them 
like the leaves of an unrolled script, every fold il- 
luminated and plain to read — telling of the glorious 
martyrdom of those heroes and saints for God and 
country — their ancestors. 

As we look at these men the mind instinctively 
goes back to the lives of the patriarchs, whose simple 
pastoral story is figured in the pages of the Old 
Testament, tending their flocks and herds, while 
their women weave and spin and care for their 
household duties, their sole test of manhood being 
obedience to the commands of God. So in Ireland, 
the lives of her sons are truly patriarchal. They 
are men who understand the dignity of labor, and 
are self-respecting and self-contained. In their eyes 
labor is sanctified by the touch of the hand of 
Christ at the Nazareth bench, and all is done in 
union with Him. 

Take any one of these men that you see toiling in 
the fields. He has knelt and said his prayers this 
morning, as on every morning of his life, and of- 
fered, as is his daily custom, all the work of the day 
to God. He goes through the day conscious that 
God's paternal glance is towards him. This eleva- 
tion of thought finds frequent external expression as 
he moves among his neighbors. Here is a friend 

[22] 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

coming down the lane that skirts the field in which 
one of them is working — listen to the greeting. 
The voice of the passer-by rings out, as soon as he 
sees his friend, " God bless the work." Our toiler 
in the field straightens himself, and quite naturally 
and simply sends back another blessing, hidden un- 
der the words " and you too." 

Let us follow the traveler. He approaches the 
hospitable half-door of a roadside cottage — the 
half-door, that is an ever-present invitation of wel- 
come to enter and share the comfort that it half- 
reveals, half-conceals. " God save all here," he 
cries. " God save you kindly," comes in quick re- 
sponse from the inmates. 

Such is the greeting, and such the welcome that 
sounds throughout the country. In mountain- 
shielded Wexford, amid the placid fields of Meath, 
by the rushing streams of King's County, and softly 
undulating hills of Munster, God's presence is al- 
ways felt. This is a people that realizes so vividly 
the fundamental principle of success in life, namely, 
that man is on earth to praise, reverence, and serve 
God and save his soul, that all their actions are 
measured and thoughts and words are colored by it. 

The suppliant by the roadside asks alms in the 
name of God and His Blessed Mother, and at the 
smallest gift returns thanks to God and the giver. 
Even though nothing be received, a blessing will be 
called down, " May God and His Blessed Mother 
protect you, and may you never know want." Be- 
cause he is poor a man does not become a pariah. 

[23] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Take the wanderer, looking for work. As he moves 
from village to village, he is certain of a welcome, a 
seat by the cozy turf fire, and a " bit an' a sup " 
from the hospitable hands of " herself." And if he 
show any shame-faced reluctance, " Sure, wasn't 
Christ Himself poor and lonesome?" she cries, as 
she goes to him with good warm food and a warmer 
welcome, " an' in helpin' you we're helpin' Him." 

This is their daily habit, but when Sunday comes 
they whole-heartedly and joyously keep the com- 
mand, " Remember thou keep holy the Sabbath 
Day." Their first duty as a nation is to visit the 
God of Nations. We see them gathering in battal- 
ions, and marching to the church as a center. 
Across the fields and callows, through the meadows 
by paths centuries old, they come thronging into 
the roads leading to the church. 

Let us stand on Sunday morning at any country 
church in Ireland, be it the little white chapel on 
Coomakista close to the house of the Liberator, or 
the homes of God in the Clare or Donegal glens, 
and we see the same reverent adoration that we be- 
held in the city churches. And as often as not, 
though the church be crowded from altar to door, 
there are almost as many more worshipers kneeling 
beneath the open sky on the gravel outside, and at- 
tentively following the Mass. Ireland's churches 
are not numerous enough to contain all the loyal 
hearts that flock to them, despite the fact that they 
have multiplied their churches and chapels in- 
credibly, and in many of them several Masses are 

[24] 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

said on each Sunday morning. The burning faith 
that makes them long to keep their God as near to 
their homes as possible has lit throughout the 
length and breadth of the land the tiny red lamp, 
telling of the Majestic Presence within — watching 
and waiting, guarding and guiding, and He who says, 
" Come to Me all ye who labor and are burdened, 
and I will refresh you," must be more than pleased 
at the national answer to His call. 

And after the Mass comes the gathering of the 
cronies in friendly groups to discuss current topics; 
the leisurely unhooking of the horses; the oft- 
interrupted yoking to the car. Here are the in- 
fants, resplendent in white robes, each the center of 
an admiring circle, as it awaits admission to the num- 
bers of the faithful by the reception of baptism; 
there are a crowd of lively children for catechism, 
and beyond are the mourners praying at the graves 
of their dead. Inside the church the benches are 
dotted with worshipers finishing their thanksgiving 
after Communion, or making the Stations, or talking 
in love to Christ, whose spirit and grace flow out 
over all. 

Sunday afternoon is spent in innocent amusement. 
The elders, seated under the hawthorn, or strolling 
quietly by road or river, or grouped on the canal 
bridge, pass the hours in pleasant converse. Some- 
times their steps turn to where, in the neighboring 
field, the shouts of the younger generation tell of 
joyous strife on the hurling or football field. 

The sun dips to the western hills, and the mellow 

[25] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

tones of the vesper bell fill the gloaming with music. 
They began their day with God, so now they end 
it in the same way. Every Sunday evening finds 
the Irish nation kneeling in fervent prayer before 
our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, who, uplifted 
by His priest, gives His blessing and peace to all. 

Another universal act of faith is the saying of the 
Angelus. At morn, at noon, and at evening, when 
the bell that announces the mystery of the In- 
carnation rings out its double peal, all minds turn 
to God. The plowman in the field, the maiden at 
the spinning-wheel, the herdsman with his flocks, 
the boy at his game, all stand motionless, and raise 
their hearts in prayer, giving thanks for the Re- 
demption. 

Once, when walking along a quiet boreen, on a 
day when the summer sun set all things shimmering, 
I saw in a small field a young man and his wife, 
industriously working — saving their little crop of 
hay. A little distance away, beneath the sheltering 
shadow of a beech tree, sat the baby, chuckling and 
playing with a frolicsome dog. 

Suddenly the Angelus bell rang out across the 
miles from a neighboring monastery. At once the 
mother ran to the little child, caught it in her arms, 
and placed it kneeling on the grass. Then she knelt 
beside, holding its little hands aloft, caught in both 
her own, as she looked up to heaven. The husband, 
who had followed, knelt beside the two, and in 
answer to the message of the bell, across the soft 
silence came, " The angel of the Lord declared unto 

[26] 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

Mary," from the reverent lips of the kneeling wife, 
and with bent head the husband, answering, gave 
audible testimony of his faith. It was a delightful 
scene. 

One of the best-known works of a famous painter 
is entitled " The Angelus." In it is depicted a corn- 
field, and in the foreground two figures, husband 
and wife, are together in prayer, standing. Far, 
far, do I prefer the picture of these children of 
Mary, kneeling in prayer, on the bosom of Ireland, 
their hearts close joined, and held by the clinging 
touch of baby fingers. 

But all are not so independent in a worldly way 
as those whom we have been watching. Some there 
are who, through no fault of their own, pass their 
lives in distressing poverty. Their resignation and 
their dignified carrying of their cross are wonderful 
to see. Well do they realize the meaning of those 
words of Sacred Scripture, " For a man's life doth 
not consist in the number of things that he pos- 
sesses." The Israelites sat by the banks of the 
river and wept, in the land of the Egyptians. Here 
the Egyptians entered the country and drove the 
people with blood and burning to the shaking bog 
and the arid mountain-side beyond the river, where 
they wept and worked and lived. In the face of 
the bitterest persecution they clung to that for which 
they suffered — their faith — and found strength 
there when deprived of all that goes to make life 
bearable. By almost incredible labors, they gained 
a pittance, cultivating the boulder-strewn mountain- 

[27] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

side, and working waist-deep in the black bog water, 
draining and fertilizing. This they did, though 
they knew full well that every improvement meant 
an added burden in the form of an increased rent. 

Though the nation, with the advent of kindlier, 
juster times, has spread once again over its ancestral 
plains, yet to-day there are many still crippled owing 
to the iniquitous treatment of their forefathers. 
Criticism has sometimes condemned them because 
they and their habitations are stained with the brown 
bog mold. It were as rational and just to cast a 
man into a fire and then reproach him for being 
burnt and helpless. Another charge that has been 
levelled at these helpless ones is that of thriftless- 
ness. It is an unjust charge, for they have shown 
that when so placed they can work towards inde- 
pendence, they are one of the thriftiest nations on 
earth. 

Listen to what the eminent John Morley has to 
say on this point: 

" I, for one, have long had a high appreciation of 
the great qualities of the Irish people. They have 
done the greatest part of the hard work of the 
world. Generations of Irish peasants have re- 
claimed the land — the hard thankless land of the 
bog and the mountain-side, knowing that the fruit 
of their labor would be confiscated in the shape of 
rent. And the Irish have piety, they have rever- 
ence, and they have had, and they had only too 
much, docility. They know how to follow leaders, 

[28] 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

and I am persuaded that there is in Ireland all the 
material out of which, with time, freedom, and re- 
sponsibility, you may build a solid nation, worthy to 
take its place among the other nations that have the 
British flag waving over them." 

" You paint a people without faults! " cries some 
one. No, they have their faults, for God, when He 
peopled the earth, did so with men, and not with 
angels. Their faults are generally the excess of 
their virtues, and are always followed by sorrow. 

Walking one day on a Connemara road, I met an 
old woman, who asked me if I had seen her husband. 
I told her that I had not. 

" Ah, then," she cried, " he has the drink taken." 

"How do you know?" I expostulated. "Do 
not blame the man before you are sure." 

" I'm quite certain of it," she replied sadly, " for 
he has taken the long road." 

By the " long road " she meant a road that 
branches from the main road a short distance behind 
us, circles inland, and then joins it again about five 
miles from where we stood. It meant a round of 
about ten Irish miles, while the distance between 
the point of its departure from and return to the 
main road is only about three miles. On this three- 
mile stretch stands a little church. 

" Why are you so certain," I asked her, " that 
he has gone by that long road, when the straight 
road home lies before him? No man would do 
such a thing after working hard all day! " 

[29] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

How little did T dream of the reasons that 
prompted that tired traveler to take the " long 
road." Intense faith and heart-felt sorrow! 

The answer of the poor woman to my question 
positively startled me. 

k We always go in in passing" she said, " to the 
church by the road, to say a prayer to Christ, who 
watches us as we go. He couldn't go past without 
speakin' to Him, and he wouldn't go near Him with 
the sign of drink on him." 

Was it not magnificent? Faults! Aye, they 
have faults, and God forgives them. That poor old 
man, tired out with a heavy day's work, done most 
probably with insufficient food, yet, because he felt 
that he had taken too much drink, added seven long 
Irish miles to his homeward journey, for " he 
couldn't go past without speakin' to Him." 

And, oh, how they love and remember the dead! 
A steady stream of Masses ascends to the Most 
High, pleading for the release of their loved ones 
from the cleansing pains of purgatory. On All 
Souls' Day they fairly besiege heaven. 

Watch a congregation after Mass, and note the 
numbers that cross to God's Acre. Here a young 
widow, her feet still on the threshold of life, strains 
her infant to her heart, as with bent head and 
streaming eyes, kneeling at the newly-made grave of 
her dead husband, she passionately pleads to God 
for him whom He has called home. There a daugh- 
ter kneels, rosary in hand, praying for her parents 
and sister, whose names are carved on the stone be- 

[3o] 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY 

fore her. At another grave stands an old woman, 
bent with age, and leaning on a staff, as she tells her 
beads. The inscription on the stone before her is 
indecipherable with age. I learnt her history. 
Fifty years before her husband had been buried 
there, and some years afterwards two of her sisters, 
and for half a century she had come weekly to pray 
at that grave. Her loved ones — whom she soon 
must join, for she was over eighty years of age — 
found that time had no power over her affection. 
Truly, hers was a love stronger than death. 

Nor is their charity confined to the family circle. 
It is almost universal in its scope. Prayers are said 
and Masses offered for " those who died to-day," 
" the soul that's deepest in," " the soul that wants 
it most," " those that are forgotten," " those that 
did me harm," and many other intentions, showing 
tangibly the mighty power of Christian charity. 

There is a grave in the corner of a Munster 
church-yard with the grass at its foot worn with con- 
stant kneeling. After Mass and after a funeral 
numbers go, when they have prayed at the graves of 
their relations, and kneel at this grave. I asked 
who was buried there. It was a poor stranger, 
who, passing through the town, was taken ill sud- 
denly, died, and was buried. 

" None of his own know of him," said one; " and 
he has no one to pray for him but us." This ex- 
plained the grass-worn grave. 

It is no wonder that when such souls come to 
die they go home willingly, like children to a loved 

[3i] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

parent. One grand old patriarch whom I attended 
was an exception to this rule. Though perfectly 
ready to die, he was very anxious to get better. On 
pressing him for his reason, he had one, and only 
one. 

" Father," said he, " I'd like, if God would let me 
get better, just long enough to go and see Christ 
once again at Mass." 

On another occasion an aged woman, dying, was 
awaiting the coming of the Viaticum. As soon as 
she heard the hand on the latch she knelt upright, 
although at the point of death, and repeated inces- 
santly with burning fervor, " Cead mille failthe, 
Ahirna! " — "A hundred thousand welcomes, Lord, 
a hundred thousand welcomes, Lord!" until the 
welcomed One lay in her heart. Priest, room, at- 
tendants, all vanished from her mind, and naught 
existed for her but Christ, her Savior, who had 
come to visit her. 

Whether kneeling, soul-cleansed by the absolu- 
tion of their priest, on the sloping deck of the 
Titanic, or quietly waiting at home within sound of 
the church bells for the coming of their last moment 
on earth; whether that moment comes in the first 
flush of youth, or when the spark of life but flickers 
feebly, matters not. Death for them is but the 
lifting of the curtain dropped by Adam between 
them and their God, and with a cry of love on their 
lips to Jesus and Mary they pass beyond it. 



[32] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EXODUS 

FRELAND lay sleeping, wrapped in beauty, when 
-*- suddenly the waves of her eastern sea whitened 
beneath the rhythmic falling of the oars of a mighty 
host. 

It was the coming of the Celts. Out of the east 
they had marched, and Europe knelt before them in 
their invincible course. Onward they pressed over 
nation after nation, their armies ringed by the silver 
flash of the battle ax. Daring and indomitable, 
with victory following the thunder of their squad- 
rons, these gigantic warriors, impelled by destiny, 
halted not till their feet pressed the green bosom of 
Erin. The magic charm of that fair land held them 
in thrall. 

Here they rested and built for themselves a 
mighty kingdom, in which they reigned supreme. 
Through the centuries, the spirit of conquest sent 
their legions out across the scenes of their former 
triumphs. The fighting Irish were known as 
dreaded warriors right across Europe to the Alps. 
The disciplined Roman soldiers in their British 
fortresses recoiled in dismay before their irresistible 
rush. Squadrons of Irish horse went thundering 

[33] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

down the river valleys of Central Europe, the Irish 
war cry rang through Alpine passes, and the gleam 
of Irish spears shone through the dark forests of 
Germany, striking terror to the hearts of all. 

Suddenly, in the full tide of military success, they 
were drawn home by a mysterious power, and na- 
tions breathed freely again. Years passed, and Ire- 
land was forgotten — until the latter part of the 
fifth century. 

Then, another army of fearless fighters poured 
from that forgotten island in the west, and trav- 
ersed Europe, conquering, as did the Irish of old, 
all that stood in their path; conquering, but not 
with the sword, for these warriors fought under 
the banner of Christ, and their sole weapon was 
His cross. 

How came this marvelous change? What was 
the mysterious power that had drawn those con- 
querors home, had tamed those fiery hearts, and 
filled them with enthusiastic love of Christ, the 
World Conqueror? 

From Rome, Christ's Vicar had sent his ambas- 
sador, Patrick, back to this nation that had once 
enslaved him. A humble pilgrim, the Apostle of 
Ireland traveled through the land, and by his 
graciousness drew all to him. He had an intensely 
affectionate heart, which bound to him a people 
that could be gained only by love. He passed 
through the ranks of these stern warriors, telling 
the story of our crucified Christ, and His message 
to men. He spoke of a new warfare, a truer test of 

[34] 



THE EXODUS 

valor and manhood than that which till now had 
held them; of a field of conquest more noble than 
aught else on earth; of a Leader who, Leader of 
Leaders, promised certain victory to all who fol- 
lowed Him. With hearts burning with the intensity 
of their desire to follow that Leader of Calvary, 
they pressed forward in their might, to receive the 
waters of baptism, and be enrolled in the ranks of 
His soldiers. Monasteries arose everywhere, and 
the whole land turned to God. 

He found the Irish a nation of fearless warriors 
dominating all nations near them, and following 
with flashing sword their famous standard of the 
flaming sun-burst. 

He left them, still a nation of fearless warriors — 
but warriors anxious only to fight in the ranks that 
march behind the banner of Jesus Christ. War- 
riors still anxious to meet other nations; but only 
because they wished to share with them the glorious 
gift that St. Patrick had given to them — the gift 
of our holy Faith. 

At that time, the Church seemed to be in a 
perilous plight — her kingly protectors were failing 
in power and strength. From east and north and 
south she was surrounded by enemies. Goth and 
Hun came sweeping in fierce flood across Europe, 
and dashed resistlessly against the walls of Rome 
itself. Pagan Rome, with all its might and power, 
sank beneath the torrent, but Catholic Rome, the 
citadel of Christ, stood strong and firm above the 
flood that surged across the world. 

[35] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Into the forefront of the battle, quick to help her, 
from the changed isle in the west, came the second 
army of the fighting Irish. 

They came out like a mighty river, and wherever 
the conflict was fiercest, whether against pagan or 
heretic, there they were to be found, fearless in their 
enthusiastic love of Christ. 

Who could have imagined that those dark forests, 
whose leaves had shivered uneasily as the fierce Irish 
squadrons went rushing by with irresistible might, 
would resound to the tramp of another army of 
Irish — equally fearless and potent. At the call 
of Christ, they left their loved homes, bravely 
mingled with those onrushing hordes, subdued their 
fierceness, and brought them into the fold of Christ. 
They helped to soften the savage heart of Goth and 
Hun, and to lay the foundations of the civilization 
of Christ, that, like a leaven, was to penetrate and 
uplift the whole earth. 

They rallied round Rome and St. Peter, for 
fidelity to the Holy See has always been a character- 
istic of Irish faith. No heresy has even taken root 
in Irish soil. The nation has ever been loyal to 
him who is the representative of Christ on earth, to 
him who sits on the throne of St. Peter. Ireland 
has always been mindful of those words of St. 
Patrick — " If you wish to be of Christ you must be 
of Rome." 

Venerable Bede testifies that numbers were com- 
ing daily into Britain, preaching the Word of God 

[36] 



THE EXODUS 

with great devotion, and Eric of Auxerre writes 
from France — " What shall I say of Ireland, which, 
despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating with 
her whole train of philosophers to our coasts." 

St. Bernard writes — " From Ireland, as from an 
overflowing stream, crowds of holy men descended 
on foreign nations." This stream flowed as far 
east as Egypt, and as far west as Greenland and 
Labrador. 

Such was the first exodus of the Irish. Centuries 
passed, and God permitted the scourge of persecu- 
tion to fall upon the nation, and the second exodus 
began, an exodus that sent the Irish fleeing for 
refuge to every part of the world. 

The cause of the second exodus is to be found 
in the enmity that they incurred because of their 
undying love and fidelity to the Leader in whose 
ranks they had enrolled themselves, and of their 
unswerving allegiance to His Church. The blood 
of Erin's children stained her bosom, and they were 
torn from her heart, because they clung to their 
faith, their heritage from St. Patrick, and never for 
one instant would they allow that precious jewel to 
be wrested from them. Out of the sea on every 
side came death to them — death swift, fearful, and 
appalling, threatening them if they gave not up their 
treasure. They looked to their God and laughed 
in the face of that death. Fire and sword ravaged 
the land, and their blood ran like water, but through 
it all the Mass bell ever tinkled in the lonely moun- 

[37] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

tain valley, and the catechism was learned beneath 
the shadow of the hedge. 

Pestilence and famine lay like a pall over Ireland, 
and from beneath the blackness her poor children 
fled in terror. 

This exodus was the scattering broadcast of a 
crucified nation. 

When the ships, shadowed by pestilence, crept 
across the Atlantic, and threw them dead and 
dying on the shores of the New World, great- 
hearted Canada, worthy daughter of France, took 
them to her heart. And when, despite all her care, 
the parents died by thousands, she guarded as a sec- 
ond mother the orphan children. It was only one 
of many touching instances of charity that was seen 
one Sunday morning before Mass in the chapel of 
a Canadian town. The French priest came on to 
the sanctuary, carrying a baby in his arms, and 
followed by twenty-four little children, who stood 
bewildered before the altar. 

" My people," he cried in his native tongue, " see 
these poor children, the orphans of our Irish 
Catholics! Who, in the name of God, will guard 
them?" Scarce had he ceased, than the congrega- 
tion rose en masse, rushed to the altar, and the little 
ones were enfolded by strong arms and held against 
loving hearts that took them for their own. 

Many of the leaders in American life are Irish, 
who as orphans were reared in the sanctuary of 
Canada's Catholic homes. And they have ever 
gloried in their origin, and never forgotten their 

[38] 



THE EXODUS 

debt to Canada. It is but a few years since that 
they met and erected a monument to commemorate 
both. 

To-day the traveler up the St. Lawrence sees 
that monument before him on Grosse Isle. It is 
an immense Celtic cross with a great carved figure 
of Christ, that looks down i-n sorrow to where at its 
feet 12,000 poor Irish exiles lie buried. It is a 
fitting memorial, because they suffered for the cross, 
and they triumphed through the cross. For, 
whether the Irish exiles sleep under the Canadian 
maple or African palm, or at the world's end under 
the golden wattle of Australia or the crimson rata 
of New Zealand, over them all swings the Mass bell, 
ringing above the altars that they have built to the 
God of Freedom and Justice. 

Near to home, or far from home, matters not — 
the spirit of the cross always animated them. 

This was the spirit that burned in the breast of 
the Irish woman who, fleeing from the famine, was 
shipwrecked on the south coast of England. She 
found employment as washerwoman to the family 
of a squire of the neighborhood. It was noticed 
that once a month she left her little room on Satur- 
day evening, and did not return until the small hours 
of Monday morning. Questioned, she said that 
she had walked to Mass at the nearest church, 
nearly thirty miles away. The two sisters of the 
squire were insistent that the Papist should be 
dismissed. 

" No," he answered bluffly, " you are educated 
[39] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

women, and she is only an ignorant Irish woman; 
go and convert her." 

Then began a campaign with tracts and appeals 
as ammunition. It waged long and vigorously; but 
the good Irish woman met argument by argument, 
and false ideas with fact, threw all the tracts un- 
read on the top of a tall cupboard, and prayed 
earnestly that her well-meaning employers would 
be given the grace to see the light. In the end 
both became Catholics. The squire was so struck 
at the pluck of the hard-worked woman walking 
nearly sixty miles for Mass, that he studied the re- 
ligion that produced such self-sacrifice, and he, too, 
became a Catholic, and all his family. His eldest 
son became a famous Jesuit metaphysician; and to- 
day, from the lawn of the family residence, the spires 
of three Catholic churches are to be seen where 
formerly not one existed. 

And distance is powerless to dim the flame of 
this spirit. The wife of the first Catholic settler 
in New Zealand was a Wexford woman. When 
her first child was born, over a thousand miles of 
one of the stormiest seas in the world rolled between 
her and the nearest church. Undaunted, she em- 
barked in a small vessel, and carried her baby from 
Auckland to Sydney for baptism. 

But ah! Who dare try to tell of the grief that 
this exodus caused to Ireland! 

" Won't you dip your pen in your heart, when 
you write of Holy Ireland? " came a message to me 
yesterday; but no heart save the Sacred Heart of 

[40] 



THE EXODUS 

our Christ can realize the weight of Ireland's cen- 
turies of sorrow. We see individual manifestations 
of it, but they are as wavelets on an ocean, telling of 
dark depths unseen. 

I was waiting one morning at a railway station 
in the west of Ireland. The American boat train 
was just due. One group on the platform attracted 
my attention. By the side of her luggage stood a 
tall young girl of about twenty years of age, evi- 
dently leaving her homeland. Around her were her 
father and mother and two brothers. They waited 
with heavy hearts for the coming of the train that 
was to bear their loved one from them. She bore 
up bravely, and talked earnestly now with one, now 
with another of the group. 

Suddenly the sharp whistle of the approaching 
train was heard. The poor girl's courage gave way, 
and with a long-drawn sob she threw herself into 
her mother's arms, who clasped her to her heart. 
The two sons, having placed the luggage on board, 
came running back, and with kindly strength forced 
the mother's arms apart, and from that refuge the 
daughter, with tears streaming, was forced into a 
carriage. The mother, in a frenzy of grief, threw 
herself on a seat close by, bowing her head on her 
hands. 

But the most pathetic figure of all was the poor 
father. He had stood bravely by as she said fare- 
well to her brothers. He had managed to smile as 
she threw her arms round his neck, and unfalter- 
ingly gave her a hearty — " God and Mary go with 

[4i] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

you wherever you be," but as he saw the train move 
off, with his daughter, her face convulsed with grief, 
calling her farewell, the deep sorrow that had been 
eating at his heart burst forth. He made as though 
to run after the moving train, but stopped sud- 
denly, and fell on his knees. Raising his arms aloft, 
he cried aloud to God, heedless of the many eyes 
bent on him in pity. My last glimpse of that sta- 
tion is burned on my memory — the quivering form 
of the inconsolable mother huddled on the bench 
where she had cast herself, the two sons standing 
near the mother, and, kneeling on the gravel, with 
hands raised in grief, the poor father crying un- 
restrainedly. 

Multiply that scene ten thousand fold, and you 
will have but a slight conception of the shadow that 
clouds the door of so many of God's faithful Irish. 

Some years afterwards I crossed on one of the 
great liners that ply between Ireland and America. 
There were nearly eight hundred of the sons and 
daughters of Erin on board. As we went racing 
westward, Mass was celebrated each morning, and 
before the voyage was ended, almost without ex- 
ception every one partook of the comfort of the 
afflicted — the Sacred Body of Christ. The exile 
has his God with him as he kneels above the mighty 
engine that is whirling below, every throb of which 
finds an echoing throb of sorrow in his heart, for it 
means that he is farther from Ireland. But his 
pain is soothed, and strength flows in upon his 
stricken soul, as he clasps his hands in reverent ado- 

[42] 



THE EXODUS 

ration and places all his grief upon the altar of his 
God. 

When we were threading our way through the 
maze of shipping that makes the harbor of New 
York the busiest in the world, I saw one of my 
friends sitting crying on the little trunk that con- 
tained all her earthly possessions. She was afraid 
of the mighty city that roared before her, and shrank 
from it in dismay. 

Two days afterwards I entered a church in that 
city, and saw kneeling at the rails my frightened 
friend of the ship. I asked her if she were more 
reconciled now. " Yes, father," she replied, point- 
ing as she did so to the tabernacle, " Our Lord is 
here, and I can talk to Him, so I'm not lonely now." 

No sea is too wide for Celtic love, and with it they 
have bridged the world, setting it in harmony to 
the soft beating of the sanctuary bell. 



[43] 



CHAPTER V 

THE MASS ROCK 

1XTANY of the children of Ireland as the cen- 
^" A turies passed were enrolled in the glorious 
army of the church triumphant. Yet, strange to 
tell, during the twelve hundred years that elapsed 
after the death of St. Patrick there was one part 
of the army of the saints that had no member from 
Ireland. Apostles, bishops, confessors, and virgins 
innumerable were hers; but among the host that 
gathered round St. Patrick in heaven through all 
those years there stood not one Irish martyr. 

The reason is not far to seek. Ireland had taken 
to her kindly heart the gift of St. Patrick and 
guarded it in loving charity through the ages. With 
the almost magic power that she possesses of draw- 
ing to herself elements the most diverse, she cast the 
seeds of faith into the hearts of all who came to 
dwell within her walls. " The Irish Celts," says 
Froude, " possess on their own soil a power greater 
than any known family of mankind of assimilating 
those who venture among them to their own image. 
Light-hearted, humorous, imaginative, susceptible 
through the whole range of feeling, from the pro- 
foundest feeling to the most playful jest, passionate 
in their patriotism, passionate in their religion, 

[44] 



THE MASS ROCK 

passionately courageous, passionately loyal and af- 
fectionate." 

This people eagerly seized the gift of God, and 
gave to the world such an example of its divine 
effects, that all to whom they offered it grasped it 
eagerly and lovingly. Thus it came that the ages 
rolled by and in this kindly soil the church grew in 
peace until God in His inscrutable providence per- 
mitted persecution to come. 

None of her children, with the exception of 
Odran, St. Patrick's charioteer, had stood in the 
red-robed army of martyrs; now she was to stand 
before God, a nation offered in holocaust. The 
church whose foundations had been laid in peace, 
and which had grown in charity to glorious strength, 
was now to have the scattered stones of her altars 
reddened with the blood of her martyred children. 

A persecution of awful fury burst upon her, and 
well did she prove that the triumph of truth is 
secured by the death of the martyr. Heresy smote 
where paganism spared. Torn by the scourge, she 
grew, as did the Church of the Catacombs, to en- 
during maturity. As the oak, lashed by the scream- 
ing wind, does but strike its roots deeper and bind 
itself more closely to mother earth, its source of 
strength, so Ireland, torn by scourge of hate, but 
clung the closer to God, the fount of consolation. 
And as the tree, under the stress of storm and chill, 
with branches broken and leaves all whirled about, 
shrivels to seeming death, till the advent of another 
spring finds it standing more sturdily and more richly 

[45] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

clad than before; so Ireland, standing stark beneath 
the darkness of the winter of death, but took on a 
new strength with the passing of the storm, and rose 
to a fuller, stronger life, vivified by the blood of her 
martyrs. 

The storm raged long and furiously, but the 
courage of her martyrs triumphed over all, and in 
the end gained peace and toleration. Her super- 
human steadiness of purpose brought shame to the 
cheek of the sister who smote her so cruelly, and the 
flame of fanaticism sank and died. 

To-day the light of truth is burning so brightly 
that the misunderstandings begot of ignorance are 
fast vanishing, and the path is being made clear to 
a union of hearts. England is perceiving the great 
qualities of her sister, her goodness — her strength 
of faith, her grasp of the supernatural. England 
has an innate reverence of God ami of the prin- 
ciples of morality and for religion, and of her nature 
must, as she recognizes them, admire the ideals of 
Ireland. Marveling at the tenacity with which the 
latter followed the beckoning hand of Christ until 
she stood triumphant beside Him, many in England 
to-day are turning to their long-despised sister, as if 
they feel that the fulfillment of her destiny, namely, 
the regaining of her lost title of " Mary's Dowry," 
will be made through the assistance and prayers of 
Ireland. 

And it is Ireland's steadfast valor that has won 
this admiration. Laws were enacted that aimed at 
the systematic degradation of the nation: Christ's 

[46] 



THE MASS ROCK 

loved ones were denied the right to live, and dying, 
their children were to be entrusted to those of an 
alien faith; priest and schoolmaster were felons out- 
lawed and hunted — yet ever and always the nation 
stood steadfast for the honor of God and the honor 
of Ireland. 

Wicked men boasted that they would not leave 
one priest alive in Ireland and that not a Catholic 
would be seen. In pursuance of this policy they 
ravaged the whole land, harrying, burning, enslav- 
ing, and killing. Banished to the mountains and 
morasses of Connaught, from the farther bank of 
the silent Shannon, the outcasts looked back on a 
smoking land, trembling beneath the tramp of the 
destroyer. Ireland — " the little black rose " — is 
black in reality now — black with the moan of the 
orphan and the falling tear of the widow. 

God permitted this, that Ireland might pass 
through the darkness to the light of fuller fruition. 
To reach Easter Sunday and Olivet she had to face 
Good Friday and Calvary. 

And bravely she shouldered her cross! 

Did the shepherds sentenced to banishment or 
death desert their stricken flocks and leave them to 
face death alone? An answer to that question is 
written on every league of Erin's soil, telling the 
reader how the good shepherd gave his life for his 
sheep. 

Why does the traveler, at that sharp turn of the 
road in leafy King's County, raise his hat as he 
passes the withered tree that overhangs the path? 

[47] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Ask him, and he will tell you that it is known for 
miles around as " the priest's tree," because from 
its branches, in the dark days, a priest hung — dead. 
One of that noble band, good shepherds all, he had 
laid down his life for his sheep. 

Everywhere these heroes were working. Glen- 
dalough in the east echoed to their prayers at the 
shrine of St. Kevin, and in the west every valley 
in Kerry — "wild, mountainous, purely popish 
Kerry " — guarded a priest. To picturesque Youg- 
hal, sitting on high by the Blackwater, belongs the 
honor of giving the first Irish martyr, Fr. O'Quil- 
lian, a Franciscan. He was not long alone, for soon 
scores climbed by the scaffold ladder to stand with 
him in heaven. 

Go eastward from Youghal, and look where the 
green plain of Waterford slopes up to the rocky 
crest of the heights that tower above the gray beach 
of Tramore. High on the sloping cliff, in the center 
of a field, yawns a pit, sinking down into darkness. 
To the ear of the listener, from the blackness below 
comes the sound of dashing water, for a tortuous 
cave joins the chasm to the sea. In those days, 
when it was death to acknowledge Christ, the bishop 
of the diocese often came stealing along the sea 
edge in a small boat, and entered the cave. On 
a rocky ledge at the foot of the pit he said Mass 
for his flock, who knelt on the grass in the sunlight 
above, guarded by sentinels and guided by the soft 
sound of the bell that told of the progress of the 
Holy Sacrifice. 

[48] 



THE MASS ROCK 

Kneel reverently in that other secret cave in the 
mountains of Monaghan, and look on those cold, 
silent walls of gray rock. Picture to yourself the 
tragedy enacted there, on the day when the priest 
stood before that shelf of rock, beginning Mass for 
the faithful who kneel around. See the start of 
terror when dense volumes of black smoke come 
pouring in, choking and stifling. Hear the last ab- 
solution of the priest, the gasping moans of the 
dying. Mark the inrush of the persecutors — the 
massacre of the fifteen still surviving and their 
vested priest. Kneel in that silent shrouded cave, 
people it with the forms of those dead heroes, and 
thank God for the honor that is yours in visiting this 
antechamber of heaven. 

Leave the mountains of the north and travel east- 
ward. Climb to where, on the hill in Drogheda, 
Christ has a home in the Dominican convent. Enter 
the holy house, where the white-robed daughters of 
St. Dominic spend their lives in prayer and work. 
Kneel once again as the silver shrine swings open, 
for the face, tranquil in death, upon which you look 
is the hallowed one of the martyred primate, the 
Venerable Oliver Plunkett. 

Southward, and you tread the mountains and 
valleys of Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford, whose 
recesses sheltered the proscribed priests. Think of 
the sufferings of that brave soggarth, who, hunted 
through these mountains, at last took refuge in the 
center of a shaking bog. He built there a little 
shelter of branches of trees plastered with mud. 

[49] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

His only furniture was a handful of straw that was 
always wet, either from the rain above or the water 
below. This warrior was eighty years of age and 
from this refuge he guided and fed his flock. 

In these mountains, too, once lurked a fighter for 
Christ whose story is recorded thus: "Timothy 
Sullivan kept a school in Dublin . . . and com- 
mitted the crime of converting two students of 
Trinity College to Popery . . . was transported, 
but returned, and is now teaching school in a little 
town in Limerick." This great-souled Sullivan had 
many compeers, and oh, how they clung to oppressed 
Ireland, giving their lives freely for her. 

In vain the spoilers tore down the altar and 
trampled under foot the sacred emblem of our Re- 
demption. They but made the land a vast God's 
Acre, whence through the centuries the dead have 
ever prayed in the spirit of their leader, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Well might the great French bishop, Dupanloup, 
speaking of them, say, " Surely the nations of 
Europe and humanity itself have reason to be proud 
of the Irish race. I know no people around whom 
their patriotism, their pure morals, their courageous 
faith, their unconquerable fidelity, their bravery 
. . . and all these noble qualities, though ever 
persecuted, never cast down, exalted and crowned 
by misfortune, have thrown a halo more captivating 
and more sorrowful." 

There are many glorious monuments to-day in 
Ireland that speak eloquently of her sufferings in 

[So] 



THE MASS ROCK 

those dark days — days when Christ's enemies tore 
the sacred altar asunder, scattered the protecting 
walls and washed them in the blood of priests and 
people, knowing not in their blindness that they 
were fighting against Him, " cujus regni non erit 
finis." But of these monuments, telling of the 
superhuman steadiness with which the brave dead 
followed Christ, to me by far the most touching is 
the granite block, a broad table of gray stone, with 
the sacred name of Jesus carved deep upon it; that 
silent table, clasped firmly by the green turf and held 
close, as a treasure, to her bosom, — Ireland's price- 
less Mass Rock. 

When they fled to the hills — priests and people 
— they carried God with them. No tabernacle now 
has He save His own blue canopy — no altar but the 
Corrig an Affrin — the Mass Rock. 

No tabernacle did I say! Oh! I am wrong. 
Watch the mountain Mass and see. The priest 
bends and speaks the miraculous words of Christ, 
and He is in their midst. The priest turns, and, 
holding God aloft, cries to the kneeling multitude — 
" Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh 
away the sins of the world," and then cries to Christ 
Himself — "Lord, I am not worthy that Thou 
shouldst enter under my roof, say but the word and 
my soul shall be healed." 

Poor Soggarth, he has no roof to bring Christ 
beneath, no resting-place for Him but his own heart 
of gold; and how willingly Christ entered that none 
but God knows. 

[5i] 



THE SOUL OF [RELAND 

The words go out on the morning air and find an 
echo in every poor outcast heart — outcast of men, 
hut not of God — and all conic surging forward to 
the feet of their Soggarth aroon, ami Christ finds 
a tabernacle once again — a tabernacle in each loyal 
Irish heart that there braves death itself through its 
overmastering love tor I lim. 

Corrig an Al'trin! the Mass Rock! 

Where can earth show a monument like it? 

What a history of love and sorrow is evoked by 
that word! What a wealth of" hallowed memories 
clings round thai loved title! What a tragic tale 
it tells of ruined altars, and ruined homes! God 
homeless and 1 lis people homeless, yet God at home 
ami 1 lis people at home as they gathered in the dark 
and the cold round the Rock oi the Mass! 

Ah, Rock of the Mass! thou hast seen this lain! 
red with the ruin of war and black with the cloud 
ot pestilence I 

Rock ot" the Mass! thou hast seen the gaunt 
specter of' famine stalk across the plain, and the dark 
pall of death lying low upon the laud, hut ever and 
always, Rock of the Mass, didst thou t'eel the 
touch ot" the lips ot' the brave Soggarth and hear the 
murmured prayers ot' the stricken ones as all bent 
before their God enthroned on thy broad bosom! 

From cave to cave on the hill-side, along the hol- 
lows ot" the mountains, through the tree clusters on 
the plain, went the word, with the swiftness and 
silence oi light. " Corrig an Attriu at dawn to-mor- 
row " ; and from the caves, and from the hollows, 

[52] 



THE MASS ROCK 

and from the trees came a silent multitude, creeping 
and stumbling through the darkness to where by thy 
side awaited them the only two friends they had on 
earth — their priest and (heir God. 

Round thee, O Rock of the Mass, no cloud of 
incense lloats, no pealing organ sounds, no blaze ol 
holy light; no incense but the mountain mist — no 
sound but the whisper of the passing breeze, sighing 
in the bracken; no light but that of God's own stars, 
looking down on stricken Ireland. 

But little recked they who were gathered round 
thee, O Rock of the Mass! They heard the soft 
beating of myriad angel wings that hovered above 
the Creator, and they felt the warm glow ol divine 
love that burned for them in the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus. 

How our hearts thrill with pride and our pulses 
quicken as we ga/.e at this monument of triumph and 
death — a monument telling of generations of in- 
domitable martyrs ! 

Gaze at that dark stain on the gray stone. Oh, 
how it speaks to us of the lonely mountain in the 
silent dawn, the shadowy forms gathering and 
crouching on the grass, the priest holding God aloft, 
the loud cry of alarm sounding through the gloom 
from the posted sentries; the low moan of misery 
from the broken-hearted kneelers, the flash of the 
musket, the priest lying across the stone, dyeing it 
with his life-blood — still clasping the chalice to his 
breast — dead. 

There thou liest, O Rock of the Mass, most 

[53] 



THE SOUL OF [RELAND 

splendid ol Ireland's treasures; an imperishable 
monument, telling oi Ireland's sorrow and oi [re- 
land's glory! For thou, holy Rock ol the Mass, 
art the Calvary o\ Ireland ! 



[54] 



CHAPTER VI 

CHRI8TMA8 in IRELAND 

CHRISTMAS in Ireland means that the whole 
land thrills with the delight of ^ivin^ n glorious 
welcome do the lord oi the Land. Christ, the 
Friend ol everybody, is coming, and I lis must be a 
royal welcome. None so lowly hut may join, and 
a wave <>i peacfe and goodwill sweeps across the 
country. The cold of winter grips the earth, but it 

is unheeded hy the warm hearts of those whose 

thoughts ;ill turn iu joylul anticipation to the coming 
of the Christ Child, while hands are busy preparing 
for the feast day. 
( )u Christmas Eve a multitude ol new Btars blazes 

from coast to eoast of Ireland. They shine on the 
wind-swept hills of lar C'onnaeht ; they twinkle 

above the surges oi Donegal and in the sofl shadows 

of Wicklow woods; they line the hanks of the hroad 
Shannon from sea to source ;ind mark the eourse ol 

the Blackwater. Single stars cast radiance upon 
every winding path on mountain and hill, clusters ol 

them lighl every crossroads and village, constella- 
tions blaze in every town and city. On every sea 
Cape, hy every Stream and lake, amid the mountains 
and on the plains, they gleam through the dusk. — 
the Irish stars of Christmas, the great Christmas 
Candle shining in the window oi every home, lijj^ht- 

[55 I 



I 111 SOUL OF [RELAND 

ing the land for the angels to guide the Christ Child 
thither. 

The candle, beneath .1 bower oi holly, is placed 
in the window to light in charity the path of the 
wayfarer. Tradition relates, tOO, that Christ and 
Mis Mother arc wandering abroad to-night, home- 
less and weary, and every door is thrown wide open 
to tell the Wanderers of the welcome and warmth 

and love that await them if they will but cross the 

threshold. The whole nation thus makes loving 
reparation lor the insult oi the closed doors oi 
Bethlehem. Hut there is a reparation oi ^oool 
works made also, lor all wayfarers receive a wel- 
come and a double alms at Christmas time. 

Almsgiving is always an act oi' love in Ireland, and 
it is especially so now. A special feature oi the 
season is the effort that is made to bring comfort 
and brightness into the lives oi the poor — Christ's 
poor, as they arc called. It is a common custom 
for a family to give a dinner ami good clothing to a 
man. a woman, ami a child who arc in need, in 
honor oi' the 1 lolv Family. The little school-chil- 
dren, led by the gentle nuns, take their part in this 
national almsgiving; and recreation hours, for weeks 
before, arc willingly devoted to the making- ot 
clothes lor the poorer brethren. 

Let us look into an Irish home at nightfall on 
Christmas Eve. When the Christmas candle is lit 
and placed in its green bower in the window recess, 
the head of the house sprinkles holy water, first 
upon the candle, and then upon the members oi the 



CHRISTMAS IN IRELAND 
family. All then kneel before it to recite- the 

rosary. The whole lain! is filled with the sound of 
prayer — a fitting greeting lor our Lord and our 
Lady- All who could have come hack to the old 
home. From distant parts ol Ireland, I rom Eng- 

land, l rom Scotland, multitudes come hurrying to 
spend Christmas at home. Leaving behind the 

glare ol the city, they hasten to where tin- old folk 
awail them with a blessing and a welcome that none 
other can give, under the rool of the old home whose 
place in the heart can never he usurped 

Hut there are, alas! many vacant places, for many 

exiles have wandered far afield — too far to return 

and join in the Christmas rosary. Hut the absent 
ones arc present in the minds ol all, and as the 
mother, caressing each head, lovingly calls them by 
name and commends them to God, the chorus of 
prayer swells with added Icrvor, lor hearts are 
moved, anil eyes glisten with emotion. 

Those vacant chairs in the rosary circle ol an Irish 
home! What a tale is theirs! They tell of the 
wild grief ol parting, the brave venturing into the 

unknown, the sad heart ever turning home — aye, 
ami the sail heart in that home ever grieving for the 

absent ones. 

On Arctic Icefields, I rom Nome to the Yukon, 
on the Pampas of Argentina, beneath the warm sun 
ol Australasia, those wanderers move, hut on 
Christmas Eve their thoughts go hack across the 
years, and memory touches with brush ol gold the 
rosary group of Christinas Eve in the old home. 

[57] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 



I low the recollection stirs their hearts] Distance 
is annihilated, time is turned back in its course, as 
they sit ofl lor Ireland. From all lands and over 
.ill seas they come, these unseen visitants. Borne 
on the wings oJ love, guided by memory, in thought 
they come to the land of their boyhood. I'p the 
mountain-sides, down the valleys, by stream and cal- 
low, boreen and canal, they glide across the land. 
No glen so remote, no shielding so hidden, no moun- 
tain path so faint hut that they find their way with 

ease. < >K 1 or young, rich or poor, matters not for 
those who march in the numberless legions oj the 
absent Irish on Christmas Eve for all arc young, 
and all are rich young with renewed youth, and 
rich in the possession oi God and country. 

I low each hurries to cross once more the sacred 
threshold. There is tin- old familiar road running 
ahead, as il it existed for no other purpose than 
to reach the branching boreen that Kails home. 
There is tin- fence, behind which arc the apple trees 
ol cross-tempered, big-hearted old Shawn — a 
fence, alas! that often proved not high enough to 
prevent nimble feet and fingers, in the golden quiet 
ol past autumn evenings, scaling to reach the forbid- 
den fruit that dangled too temptingly. 

The road runs on, past the gap in the hedge, 
through which the call ol" tin- nesting-birds in the 

trees beyond so often silenced the call ol the hooks 
from the little sehoolhouse that, white in the Star- 
light, still sits patiently on the road-edge beneath 

the tree clump. 

[58] 



CHRISTMAS IN IRELAND 

Past all these, with never ;i stop, in thought our 
exile goes racing. On at lightning speed over the 
humpbacked bridge that, steep as the cantle of a 

Western saddle, spans the sleeping eanal ; on be- 
tween gray hedges lining silent fields; into the gloom 

of a fir plantation, round by the stone wall, till — 
steady now, only one more turn and " I'll he there." 
No haste now, every step means a pleasure not 
lightly to he passed. Memory, slowed by the pulse 

of love, lingers lon^ on that last road-stretch <>l 

purest joy. Slowly the turn is rounded, with eyes 

alight and quickened heart-beat, and yes- there it 

is, just as of old, the center ol the exile's world — 
the home where he was born. The thatched roof 
gleams deep jn>ld above the dark green "I the- haw- 
thorn rinrr in which it is set. The Christmas candle- 
lights his steps ;is in fancy our exile goes Stealing 

down the well-remembered path. A murmur of 

voices from within (ills the air, and lie halts at the 
window to drink in those wcll-rcmcmbered tones, 
that have never ceased making music in his heart. 
They are saying the rosary, and unbidden tears cloud 
his eyes as he hears his own name mentioned and 
his (loirijrs recalled. Then, joy of all joys, he rev- 
els in the burst of delight that fills the room as he- 
lilts the- latch with a " God save- all here " and kneels 
in his vacant place before- the- Christmas candle. 

They are- all there — just as he left them. No 
use to tell him that time- has lined the one c smooth 
brow e>f mother, that Mary is a holy nun for many 
years, that little James is a stalwart jriant amassing 

hoi 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

a fortune in the shadow of the Rockies. Memory 
resolutely refuses to change them. There they were 
and there they are, and there they will always be. 
Time is powerless to alter the dream pictures of mem- 
ory — home to the exile is always home as he left it, 
home unchanged, home untouched by time. May 
time be powerless, too, to dim the faith that sets those 
Irish stars of Bethlehem blazing, and ties the hearts 
of the exiles to the old land with chains of love ! 

Those stars burn through the hours of the night 
until they pale with the coming of the dawn — the 
dawn of Christmas Day. All the land is wrapped 
in wonderful silence, hushed as if in motionless ex- 
pectation of the coming of the King. Silver frost, 
like a veil of fairy lace, transforms and beautifies 
the somber browns of winter; crystal jewels hang on 
tree and heather, and gleam in lowly valley and on 
towering mountain. 

The Mass bells break the silence and fill the land 
with music. In answer to their call, through the 
fields, along the canals, by road and boreen and 
meadow path, multitudes, with hearts aflame, hasten, 
as the shepherds hastened through Judean fields on 
the first Christmas, to kneel before their Savior. 

From altar rail to door they fill the church, that 
stands a blaze of light for the whole country-side to 
see and rejoice at. " Venite exultemus ! " — the 
song of God's angels, that filled with joy the hearts 
of the Judean shepherds, rings out and fills the 
hearts of these Irish shepherds of Christ with joy 
as they kneel before His altar. And the whole- 

[60] 



CHRISTMAS IN IRELAND 

souled, unrestrained appreciation of the tremendous 
honor that God is conferring upon them ! One feels 
far away from earth and on the borderland of heaven. 
Great waves of prayer go rolling through the church 
and break in ecstasy around the altar, while the air 
is filled with low exclamations of love, that speak of 
a faith full of understanding and devotion. 

What mysteries does life or death hold for that 
good soul who, kneeling with clasped hands at the 
altar rail, sees nothing but the tabernacle, is con- 
scious of nothing but the Sacred Presence there, 
and who prefaces her prayers in the soft Gaelic 
tongue with " A hundred thousand welcomes, Lord 
Jesus Christ, my darling, my most trusted and loyal 
Friend"? Every line of her face, her intense 
eagerness, her passionate devotion, tell of full knowl- 
edge of the Dweller in the tabernacle. 

And how they follow the Mass ! It is a crescendo 
chorus of open-hearted adoration, that reaches its 
climax when the priest of the Sacrifice speaks the 
words of consecration, and God comes down from 
heaven and is enthroned upon the altar. Their ad- 
oration is deeply touching in its primitive simplicity 
and fervor. The air is vibrant with emotion and 
quivers as if with a mighty outburst of applause, felt 
rather than heard, suppressed because of reverence 
for the sanctity of God's House. 

There is a custom in some parts of Ireland at the 
consecration that is indescribably affecting. When 
the warning bell rings, vocal prayer ceases, all heads 
bend low, and a solemn silence reigns over all. 

[61] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Hie bell again rings, telling of the accomplishment 
of the miracle, and that God is in their midst. Then 
an astonishing act takes place. Like the steady rush 
of a deep torrent, whose quiet How hides irresistible 
strength, in the presence oi their divine King, the 
pent-up love oi those adorers, bursting all barriers, 
breaks out. I'he whole congregation, as owe man, 
with swift uplifting oi bowed heads, looks towards 
the altar, and, moved bv one impulse, cries in low- 
tones that are startling in their dramatic intensity, 
"A hundred thousand welcomes, Lord, a hundred 
thousand welcomes, lord! " No heart that has not 
telt it can imagine the touching beauty oi the tribute. 
It is as it every soul present, breaking from its 
earthly body, leaps in love to the altar to kiss the 
sacred feet oi the Crucified. 

Thence onward their Muss is an unbroken col- 
loquy with Emmanuel, God in their midst, and a 
reverent preparation for His reception at Com- 
munion. At the sound oi the bell the whole con- 
gregation surges forward to the communion rail, and 
Christ finds sanctuary in the hearts oi these ardent 
adorers, tor on Christmas Hay the whole nation 
goes to Communion. All earth fades, and each soul 
kneels in a solitude, alone with Christ. 

I low they follow the sermon upon Christ's birth 
and sufferings, and expressively show their sym- 
pathy! Well can they understand, for outside on 
the holy hills of Ireland the Mass Rock lies, gray 
against the green, telling oi bygone Christmas days 
of sacrifice and suffering, days when Christ came to 

[62] 



CHRISTMAS IN IRELAND 

an Ireland more drear and desolate than the wind- 
swept cave of the first Christmas. 

After Mass there are the joyous reunions and 
good wishes and simple joys of Christmas-time, but 
the Friend in the tabernacle is ever in their thoughts. 
All through the day in steady stream they come to 
kneel with Mary and Joseph, on guard by the side 
of the manger. The listening angels must rejoice 
at the scenes enacted there. Here kneels a group 
of little children, gazing in open-eyed wonderment 
at " their first crib," while mother points and ex- 
plains and prays, and introduces her baby to Mary 
and her Babe — the Divine Child at whose bidding 
the whole universe swings. Beside them, oblivious, 
kneels a bent old saintly soul, whose " first crib " 
is hidden in the mists of ages almost forgotten, and 
who, utterly unmindful of the moving crowd, spends 
hour after hour kneeling, enraptured, holding un- 
ending colloquies with the Holy Family. 

No chapel so small or poor but has its crib and its 
crowd. Be the crib one whose artistic beauty makes 
it a center of pilgrimage from afar, or one rivalling 
in poverty the first crib of Bethlehem — it matters 
not: faith reads to the full the lessons of the cave, 
and love, like a magnet, draws all hearts to the In- 
fant King of Christmas. 

May it ever be so! May the hallowed light of 
the Christmas candle ever glow in Ireland, and may 
Ireland always be a sanctuary where a nation gives 
royal welcome to its Divine King. 

[63] 



CHAPTER VII 

MONTH OF MARY 

|\/T AY in [reland is the Month of Mary. Devo- 
^*1 tion to Our Lady has always been a character- 
istic of Irish faith, and the nation during this month 
honors, in a special manner, the Mother of God. 
She is truly the Mother of the Nation, and this is 
the natural sequence ol their strong love of God, for 
devotion to Mary is most attractive where faith is 
strongest. Faith loves, heresy hates Mary. 

Irish devotion to Mary is full of light-hearted, 
joyous exultation, telling of coni\dc\\cc ami love be- 
tween a mother ami her children. May is truly the 
merrie month in Ireland, lor nature and grace co- 
operate to make it so. The whole land rejoices, 
brightened by the smile i)\ Mary. Nature puts on 
her richest raiment to do her honor. Through the 
month of April the sun, mounting daily higher, sent 
deepening tides i^( green across the land. Wave on 
wave, they went rippling over brown hill and valley, 
till the country was tilled with the music o\ rustling 
leaves, whose shadows danced upon the grass as 
they felt the caress of the breath of laughing spring. 
Sleeping nature awoke, ami, clad in beauty at the 
touch oi spring's magic lingers, awaited the com- 
ing of May, to display still greater fullness of her 
treasures. 

[64] 



MONTH OF MARY 

May morning dawns, and nature in welcome scat- 
ters her flowers with lavish hand upon the green. 

The snow-white wave of May bloom sweeps from 
sea to sea: the golden gorse flames on the hill-side: 
gentle winds, laden with the scent ol meadow and 
hedge and tree, move softly over the plains: the 
songs of blackbird and thrush and skylark (ill grove 
and sky, for Ireland in May-time is a paradise of 
birds. May is the month of the full glory of llower 
and field and wood, and is fittingly chosen as the 
month of her who is the full glory of the human 
race, Mary, the Queen of Earth and 1 leaven. 

Into this land of song and beauty, as into a temple 
of honor, comes Mary, and hers is a wonderfully 
warm welcome. 

The mantle of faith that covers the land is em- 
broidered with a thousand beauties woven by love 
in her honor. Mary to this people is the mirror 
that gives them a glimpse ol God. 

" Love's minor doubles Love's caress, 
Love's cello to Love's voice is tine. 
Their sire the children love not less, 

Because they love a Mother too." 

And none but has perfect knowledge of Mary's 
place in God's creation. 

" He, He is K.inf>; and He alone, 
Who lifts that Infant-hand to hless, 
Who makes His Mother's knee His throne, 
Yet rules the starry wilderness." 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

They kneel at Mary's knee because it is the throne 
of God, and send all their prayers to Him through 
her, the Mother of the Judge and the Mother of 
the sinner. With them, the Mother is always with 
her Son, from Bethlehem to Calvary, and the in- 
tensity of their devotion is remarkable. Everything 
about her is sacred — even her very name. In Eng- 
lish we have but the one name — Mary, and it is 
borne by saint ami sinner alike. It is not so in 
the tongue of the Irish, a language saturated with 
religious sentiment. So great is their reverence, 
that a name is set apart and kept sacred to her for 
ever — the name Muire. All other women bearing 
the name of their Queen are called Maire. Of all 
the Irish Marys (and they are an uncountable host, 
for in every family one daughter, at least, is baptized 
Mary) none takes the sacred name of Muire. 

This warm love of Mary is as old as the faith in 
Ireland. The Irish were the first Western nation 
to proclaim the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion, and over a thousand years ago a favorite Irish 
litany began thus: " O great Mary, Mary greatest 
of Marys, Most great of women, Queen of the 
angels, Mistress of heaven, Woman full of grace, 
Honor of the sky, Breast of infants, Ladder of 
heaven." At the dawn of each day through the 
year, the Angelus bell rings out, recalling to all the 
coming of Gabriel to announce the glad tidings to 
Mary. At noon, again it peals out, and at the 
sound, every soul turns from earth to heaven in 

[66] 



MONTH OF MARY 

reverent prayer to God. The children playing by 
the roadside fall on their knees and clasp their lit- 
tle hands; the laborer in the fields, kneeling with 
bared head, gives thanks for the coming of Christ 
to Mary; in the busy schoolroom and in the 
crowded market, everywhere all minds are centered 
on heaven. Again, at the close of the day, when 
the same call to prayer rings out, this people turns 
to God and Mary. All work, all play, all speech 
ceases, and the message of the Angelus rings out 
thrice daily over a land stilled in reverent silence, as 
the nation bows in prayer of thanksgiving to God. 

But in Mary's month their love of Our Lady 
blazes forth with more ardor than ever. 

On the opening day of the month all rise early 
to finish daily work, and then they set off to " make 
the rounds " at holy well, or shrine of Our Lady. 
" To make the rounds " means a pilgrimage to a 
holy well, the recital of rosaries, the giving of alms. 
This goes on from sunrise to sunset of the first day, 
and is a fitting introduction to the month. 

During the month, all who can, begin each day 
with Mass and Communion, and end it with Bene- 
diction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. On Sun- 
days, in every village and town, Mary's children, with 
banner or statue, walk in procession, singing hymns 
of praise to her. 

May, too, is the time of missions, potent channels 
of God's graces. Spring work is finished, and the 
harvest is not yet begun; therefore, people are not 

[67] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

so busy as usual. At these missions, instances of ex- 
traordinary faith are so frequent as to cease to be 
remarkable. 

I have known good souls in Donegal to take their 
places at six o'clock in the evening, and remain all 
night, to be able to go to confession next morning 
and receive Holy Communion at Mass. They 
spent the hours in making the stations and reciting 
the rosary. Many walk great distances fasting, and 
very often remain fasting till four o'clock in the 
afternoon, in order to receive the Blessed Eucharist 
— and all this with no thought of sacrifice — noth- 
ing but a holy joy at the thought of their union with 
God fills their hearts. 

Every Irish home has its May altar. Joyous 
bands of children strip the fields and hedgerows of 
daisies and primroses and snow-white May blossom; 
the banks of rivers and brooks are despoiled of their 
violets; water-lilies are gathered from the ponds 
to adorn it. Each night the family rosary is said 
before it, and the whole family turns in faith to 
Mary Mother. The bent form of the grand- 
parent, " with wrinkled hands, but youthful soul, 
counting her lip-worn rosaries," kneels beside the 
little child, whose face shines with the wondrous 
light that tells of an untarnished soul, as with tiny 
hands close clasped she looks in innocence at the 
Mother of Innocence. There is no place in these 
hearts for fear when they look to their " Myden 
Dheelish," their " Darling Virgin," the " Guiding 
Wand of Maidens," " the Banner of Peace to save 

[68] 



MONTH OF MARY 

the World." Daughters of Erin crowd round their 
Mother, look up with love and confidence for pro- 
tection and guidance, and they are not disappointed. 
This wealth of spiritual love, that wells up and 
overflows in Irish hearts, love rooted in heaven, 
and nurtured in reverence, keeps all earthly love 
pure and good. Woman's spiritual worth is under- 
stood, Mary stands over by her side, and she is held 
in deep reverence. This high ideal of womanhood 
has kept the nation faithful and strong. Listen to 
the testimony of Lecky in his " History of Rational- 
ism in Europe " : 

" The world is governed by its ideals, and seldom 
or never has there been one which has exercised a 
more profound and, on the whole, a more salutary 
influence than the mediaeval conception of the Virgin. 
For the first time woman was elevated to her rightful 
position. . . . Into a harsh and ignorant and be- 
nighted age this ideal type infused a conception of 
gentleness and purity unknown to the proudest gen- 
erations of the past. In the pages of living tender- 
ness which many a monkish writer has left in honor 
of his celestial patron; in the millions who, in many 
lands and in many ages, have sought, with no barren 
desire, to mold their characters into her image; in 
those holy maidens who for the love of Mary have 
separated themselves from the glories and pleasures 
of the world, to seek in fastings and vigils and 
humble charity to render themselves worthy of her 
benediction; in the new sense of honor, in the 

[6 9 ] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

chivalrous respect, in the softening of manners, in 
the refinement of tastes . . . and in many other 
ways, we detect its influence: all that was best in 
Europe clustered around it, and it is the origin of 
many of the purest elements of our civilization." 

Ireland has always clung to Mary, and she in 
return has ever guarded Ireland, giving her a 
courageous strength of faith almost without par- 
allel. Religion colors every moment and every act 
of the lives of her people, and the spiritual vacuity 
of mind of the skeptic is beyond their comprehension. 
Looking on the world with eyes of faith, they see 
God in all His creatures. Nature's beauties for 
them are stepping stones to God: every tree a living 
monument to Him; every flower a tongue singing 
the Creator's praises. 

Such a faith is unshaken by earthly vicissitudes. 
Peace or war, calm or storm, in the midst of trials 
and tortures, in the face of awful death, the hand 
of God is always visible to them. See that poor 
girl, whom the priest found just at the point of 
death from famine and fever. All her people were 
dead, and she, deserted by all, too weak to move, 
lay motionless on the floor of a cabin, dying. The 
priest, moving through a land of death, found her 
lying just inside the open door. The poor creature, 
a skeleton, lit by two blazing eyes, was patiently 
waiting for death. Snow had fallen during the 
night, and the wind had blown it in upon the floor, 
where it lay, its whiteness matched by that of the 

[70] 



MONTH OF MARY 

forehead of the poor girl, against which it had 
drifted. The priest, moved to tears, fell on his 
knees beside her, to prepare her for her journey 
Home. Her white lips moved, and as he bent to 
catch her feeble whisper, he heard these words, 
coming from a heart filled with triumphant faith: 

" Isn't God good, father? I was lyin' here with 
nobody to look after me but Him and His Blessed 
Mother. I was burnin' with the fever and thirsty, 
and no one to give me a drink, and He sent the cool 
snow and it came in to my face and I drank it. 
Isn't He good?" 

In such a glorious soul, faith melts into vision, 
and the Irish keep his vision clear by daily and hourly 
prayer. 

" We're travellin' the long straight road, with 
God at the end of it, and sure we must remember 
Him." And they travel that road with the rosary 
of Mary in their hands. 

An Irish rosary! How Irish fingers cling to it 
and Irish lips caress it! A magic circlet, Mary's 
girdle, they have always held it firmly, and she has 
always watched them. 

As Mary, the " Mother of the Golden Heights," 
stands, Rosary-girdled, over Ireland, out of the fog 
and gloom of poverty, out of the blackness of pesti- 
lence and famine, out of the red flame of war, out of 
the chill desolation of prison cell, Irish hands stretch 
eagerly upwards to her. Hands of childhood, hands 
of age, hands worn with sickness, hands weak with 
torture, hands hardened with toil, hands twisted 

[7i] 



THE SOU] OF [RE1 AND 

with pain, hands of s.iint and hands oi sinner — all 
hands of beauty, quivering with love, peach upward 
from the shadows and turmoil c»l earth, and clasp 
her girdle. At its touch, resignation and consola* 
tion How down upon the anguished soul, hope swells 
again in the broken heart, and shame and misery 
and despaii are banished, for clasping that girdle 
means clasping the " Ladder of Heaven." 

The rosary has always been the anchor oi the 
lush. Clinging to this girdle of Mary, and calling 
to her .is Gabriel called, by its heads they read the 
book oi the life of her Sim. As a musician takes 
a simple air and enriches it with embellishments, 
clothing it with chords upon chords, evoking mag- 
nificent harmonies, now swelling with thunderous 
volume, now dying to the softest whisper, seemingly 
ever changing, yet ever keeping the simple air run- 
ning like a golden thread through all, so Mary's sup- 
pliant clings to her girdle, ,\nA, using the simple 
theme oi the "Hail Mary," looks back with her 
upon the past. Guided by Mary, she sees before 

her the lace oi One whom she loves dearer than lite 

— the face of Mary's Son. \t the touch of the 
beads she sees that face smiling in all the grace and 
innocence oi childhood, and its eyes look lovingly 

into Iter own; now it is the mystic face oi the 

readier; again, the agonized face of the Crucified 

— and, one last glimpse, the glorified face of her 

God. In childlike faith, she kneels .\nd watches, 
held fast by Mary's maternal hand. Can earth 

show a more beautiful picture, or an ideal as high? 

[72] 



MON III OF M \KY 

[reland In May is .1 vasl cathedra] filled with i<>\ 
ous worshipers oi God: ;i land glowing in the radi* 
ance <>i the I ■ ^4. lit that comes from Him who is the 
Light oi the World, for Ireland's heart is .1 living 
chalice wherein rests the Savior of the world, ilu- 

Son ol Mary. 



73 



CHAPTER VIII 

CORPUS CHRIST] IN [RELAND 

T I has ever been tin- custom in Ireland to observe 
* with special devotion ;ill the festivals of the 
Church. 1 leedless of the criticism of a world that 
looks over her borders and smiles tolerantly at her 
icts, she has ever persisted in thus obeying the man- 
dates oi her Church, and in honoring her God with 
whole-hearted devotion. As a result, a growth of 
most beautiful customs has gathered round each 
least day, giving it, so to speak, its individuality. 

The intensity of the faith shown at these mani- 
festations ol love is striking. Some years ago I had 
the privilege o( taking part in a procession on the 
(east ol Corpus Christi in a country town in Ireland. 
The town stands, surrounded by trees, in the heart 
of the central plateau o\ Ireland, and near it three 
provinces meet. Over it tower the blue Slieve 
Bloom Mountains, from whose hollows a little river 
comes rushing, and after encircling the town, goes 
hurrying oft to join the southward-moving Shannon. 

A thousand years ago, a monastery was built 
where the town now stands. It was tilled with 
learned, ardent worshipers — Catholic monks who 
sanctified the country-side by work and prayer and 
Mass. To-day nothing remains of that once 

I 74] 



CORPUS CHRIST] IN IRELAND 

splendid pile but a mound of broken stones, eloquent 
yet of the undying faith that shaped them — faith 
that still lives and speaks; for this people have 
built another home for God by the side of these 
stones, and the boom of the great bell in its tower 
to-day goes ringing across the plain and against the 
mountain slopes, telling of the same Mass, the same 
Church, the same priesthood, the same Faith, as did 
the monastery bell in the long-dead ages. 

Our road to the town lay across a stretch of soft 
brown bogland, on the farther side of which was a 
low swelling of rich pastureland. Over this the 
road went winding for several miles, flanked by 
thick hedges of dark-green hawthorn. The scent of 
their May blossom still hung upon the air, a fragrant 
memory, recalling the vanished beauty of the white 
wave that in May breaks upon the green bosom o«f 
Ireland. 

Up hill and down dale we went, and one soon saw 
that on that day the town in question was the center 
of the whole country-side. Every mile of the road 
was crowded with people. From a do/en miles 
round they were pouring into it. Every vehicle and 
every beast of burden had been requisitioned, from 
slow-moving Neddy, the patient one, to the fast- 
moving trotting horse. 

I had promised to show a Saxon guest an example 
of what Irish faith means, and he, expectant, sat 
with me as we bowled merrily along a road crowded 
with pilgrims. 

" Well," he said, as we passed conveyance after 

[75] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

conveyance, each filled with a merry, joking crowd, 
" the only thing that I know that would bring us 
out in such numbers is a race meeting or a bank 
holiday. This is certainly astonishing to me!" 

"Wait until you arrive at the town," I told him, 
" and you will be more than astonished, tor every 
road leading thither is as crowded as this one." 

\nA so the event proved. An involuntary ex- 
clamation of admiration burst from him as, at a turn 
of the road, we saw the little town below us. 

To a lover oi nature, it was a glorious view that 
stretched before us. The road fell from our feet 
to the plain below, went running over a hump- 
backed bridge that spanned a river, and was hidden 
from sight by the clustering brown-thatched cot- 
tages that marked where the town began. Flanked 
by their white walls, it ran curving into the town, 
reappeared on the farther side, and then went climb- 
ing — a white ribbon against the green — to the 
foothills oi the Slieve Bloom Mountains that 
towered to the skyline. 

But it was not the beauty oi the natural setting 
of the picture that drew the exclamation of wonder 
from my friend. That was caused by the sight of 
the lavish decoration oi the town. From the ruins 
oi the old monastery on the right, across to the little 
cottages that we had already noticed standing by 
the roadway on the left of the town, all was one 
mass oi color. From the dark trees on the river 
edge came the gleam oi many-colored arches. 
Flags floated from buildings and other arches 



CORPUS CHRIST1 IN IKKLAND 

spanned the streets. Walls and windows were dec- 
ora ted with statues, pictures, and blazing candles. 
The streets were thronged with expectant thousands. 
The inscriptions upon the arches showed the nature 
of their expectancy. Across the entrance to the 
main street was one bearing the words, " Venite, 
exultemus Domine." Lower down we passed un- 
der one that flung across the street, in salutation to 
Him who was soon to pass beneath it, the words 
" Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini." 

" Can they understand the meaning of the words 
on the arches? " asked my Saxon, as we passed down 
the street. 

'Do you see that old lady over there?" I an- 
swered, " with the shawl, mantilla-like on her head, 
and the rosary beads in her hands? " 

I pointed out a stalwart dame who was telling her 
beads, looking with rapt devotion at a huge banner 
of Our Lady of Lourdes. 

" Now," T said, " if you want an answer to your 
question, an answer that will be direct, prompt, and 
decisive, go over and ask her if she understands; 
but I warn you that you had better make sure that 
your life-insurance policy is in order, for she will 
deem your question an insult to her love of her God, 
and she will fill in some of the blank spaces that 
evidently have been left in your education." 

He decided to wait for a time before inquiring, 
and the events of the day soon rendered inquiry 
superfluous. 

We made our way to the church, which was to be 

[77] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

the starting-point of the procession of the Blessed 
Sacrament. 

Our Lord was taken by loving hands from His 
throne on the altar. Placed in the golden mon- 
strance, He was carried to the door of the church, 
and at the sight of Him, looking out over the multi- 
tude, His people dropped in adoration on their knees 
before Him, pouring out their love in fervent aspira- 
tions. 

Carried by His priests, clad in the sacred vest- 
ments, He set out on His triumphal march through 
His loyal subjects. All were there. Before Him, 
scattering flower petals, ran His little children; be- 
hind, with their blue dresses and white veils, emblems 
of their consecration to their Mother and His 
Mother, " the darling Virgin," came the members 
of the sodality of the Children of Mary. Behind 
these marched the various sodalities of the town, 
every man and woman of them proud of the honor 
that was theirs that day. 

But, splendid as was the procession, there was a 
feature of the celebration that was more striking 
than anything else, and that was the adorning of the 
houses in honor of Him who came and passed 
through their midst. It was not a case of the dec- 
oration of a house here and there, but of every house 
in every street. One stands out clearly in my mem- 
ory. It was a little thatched cottage, with two tiny 
windows, and in the center a door. 

In the doorway stood a little altar to Our Lady. 
There in the center, thrown into striking relief by 

[78] 



CORPUS CHRISTI IN IRELAND 

a background of dark-green leaves and ferns, 
gleamed the blue and white and gold of a fine statue 
of the Mother of Him who was halting just outside 
that cabin door, while the swinging censers filled 
the street with the aromatic fragrance of the burn- 
ing incense. 

Bright as gleamed the gold on the statue, it was 
not brighter than the gold that gleamed in the 
hearts of the old couple who knelt on the cobble- 
stones, just outside the door of their cabin. Ob- 
livious of all else, they bowed in adoration to the 
King of kings, who stood before them. The old 
wife was beside herself with emotion. At one mo- 
ment, striking her breast, she would bow until her 
forehead almost touched the stones of the street, 
and the next would raise herself, with outflung arms 
and eyes that saw naught in that street but Him of 
the monstrance, as she cried aloud to Him in burn- 
ing accents of love. Tears were streaming from 
her eyes, but they were tears of joy, for God's grace 
was making music in her heart. 

For that holy soul there was no need to have 
lived in the days of the Apostles, and have heard the 
call: " Jesus of Nazareth is passing; " no need to 
have lived in Judea and marked the rush of those 
who wished to see the Word made flesh as He 
moved through the Holy Land. No need for her 
to ask, as did the blind man seated by the Jericho 
road: "Who is it?" and to be told "Jesus of 
Nazareth is passing by." No need for her to be 
brought before Him and to beg for sight through 

[79] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

the touch of His holy hands. She knows, without 
asking, that He is passing, for her soul was touched 
at its creation by those holy hands, and has never 
been separated from Him since. No; Jesus of 
Nazareth was passing by that day in holy Ireland, 
and she saw Him as vividly and loved Him as in- 
tensely as ever Galilean did. 

I stole a glance at my Saxon friend as we were 
passing that cabin door, and the rhapsodies of love 
from the kneeling woman filled the street. He is 
not prone to outward manifestation of emotion, but 
his eyes were fixed on his God before him, and, 
openly and unashamed, he was weeping. 

" I never saw anything like it," he said to me 
afterwards. "Faith! It's not faith, but actual 
vision that God has blessed these people with." 

On through the streets God went in triumphal 
procession, amid the loud acclaim of His loving and 
loved ones. In every window blazed the candles 
lighted in His honor, in every door stood the little 
altars with picture or statue. St. Joseph had his 
place, and the Sacred Heart and St. Brigid, and 
of course, St. Patrick of the flowing beard and the 
miter and the crozier and the wriggling snake. 

We come to a white altar. Flowers are white, 
decorations are white, tabernacle is white. Here 
Our Lord rests for a moment, and listens to the 
thunder of the hymn that breaks from the lips of the 
kneeling thousands, and goes booming out across 
the silence of the mountain valleys. Farther on we 
pause and enthrone Him on an altar that glows red 

[80] 



CORPUS CHRISTI IN IRELAND 

against the dark woods — red, that color so befitting 
a land of His martyrs. 

And so they accompany Him around the town, 
begging His blessing for each and all. Over the 
bridge they go with Him, back to where the spire 
of His home towers above the houses that to-day 
cluster beneath its shadows, as of old they clustered 
below the spire of the Cistercian abbey, of which 
nothing now remains but the foundation. 

Enthroned once again within His house, God 
looks down the crowded aisles and hears the loud- 
sounding praises that go up from the kneeling multi- 
tude, only a small part of which can find place in 
that large church. Suddenly the benediction bell 
rings, and perfect stillness falls upon the crowd. 
Held on high by His priest, God gives His blessing 
to His children. The organ thunders forth, the 
people exultingly chant " Adoremus in aeternum 
sanctissimum sacramentum," " Let us adore forever 
and forever." Aye; " forever and forever." May 
such be the destiny of Ireland. 

If the Heart of Our Lord thrilled at the sound 
of the hosannas that greeted Him as He walked in 
Judea — hosannas uttered by those who, when 
danger and contumely were His, stood by in silence 
and let Him climb Calvary alone — how His Sacred 
Heart must have rejoiced at the outburst of tested 
love that greeted Him in that Irish town! Love 
for Him fire-tried as gold in the furnace, and love 
purified and strengthened by the trial. 

My Saxon friend sat silent as at the end of the 
[81] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

day \vc drove through crowds of light-hearted folk 
who were making their way homeward. Judging 
from the snatches of conversation that fell upon our 
ears as we sped by, the one theme on every tongue 
was the great procession. 

"Did you hear that?" he suddenly exclaimed, 
as he looked towards two groups that had just joined 
before us, on a hill that we were slowly climbing. 
The first group consisted of half a dozen motherly- 
looking old souls wrapped in what seemed an infinity 
of garments, that suited them admirably, despite 
their voluminousness, and whose white-frilled caps 
reminded one of their sister Celts of Catholic 
Brittany. The steady sedateness and deliberateness 
ot their steps enabled the lighter-stepping members 
of the second group to overtake them. This latter 
group was made up oi a father, mother, and four 
children. 'The youngest, a child of about six years 
ol age, was clad in white, and carried a small basket 
in her hands. 

It was their word of greeting that aroused my 
Saxon from his deep meditation. 

"Well, Moira, girleen," said Matron Number 
One to the little basket-bearer, as they met, " 'tis 
you that's the lucky one, scatterin' flowers for the 
Blessed Mother of God to walk upon! " 

" Aye," ejaculated Matron Number Two, in 
semi-soliloquy, "if we could only see her the same 
as we saw her Son ! 

" Wisha, woman!" broke in Number One in 
good-humored impatience, " sure 'tis hard to plaze 

[82] 



CORPUS CHRIST] IN [RELAND 

some o' yc. Didn't you sec God Himself? And 
don't you know the Blessed Mother was walking iii 
front of Him? Where else 'ud she he? An' yet 
ye're not contint ! " 

All looked up as we passed them, and in quick 
response to our greeting came a shower of warm- 
hearted blessings, beginning with the shy " God bless 
you " of the little child, and ending in a flowing 
stream of liquid Gaelic from the eldest of the ma- 
trons. 1 Icr final wish and blessing to us, " Ban- 
nachth De Lath," — " May the blessing of God go 
with you," — came like an organ tone through the 
glorious harmony, whose echoes sounded in our 
hearts for many a mile. 

We left them with God and I lis angels, and 
turned our faces to where in the track of the setting 
sun our home lay far out on the plain. 

" Well," musingly ejaculated my Saxon, " these 
people live in the presence of God, certainly. Did 
you notice the face of that little girl, with its re- 
markable purity and beauty? She looked like an 
' escaped angel ' ! " 

" Yes," I answered, " and she was in good com- 
pany." 

" There's no doubt of that," he replied. " Faith 
and prayer such as I saw to-day is a revelation to 
me. I understand now, better than ever before, 
how ' perfect love castcth out fear.' God is truly 
a Father — well-beloved — to these people, who 
cling to Him in warm-hearted confidence. It seems 
to me as if I have been privileged to-day to enter 

[83] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

a corner of heaven, and have been watching God 
walking about among His people. They are a mar- 
velous race — God bless them ! " 
11 Amen," said I. 



CM 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NUNS OF IRELAND 

r T"*HE saintly heroism of our nuns is one of the 
■*- most touching proofs of the holiness of the 
Church. In the words of Aubrey de Vere, an Irish 
poet who deserves to be more widely known: 

" O Mary, in thy daughters still 
Thine image pure if pale we find, 
The crystal of the flawless will, 
The soul irradiating the mind." 

Sisters of the Queen of Heaven, these lowly hand- 
maidens of God and humanity walk the path of per- 
fection in their quiet cloisters, their lives lit by the 
soft glow of the tabernacle lamp. Leaving all that 
earth holds dear, they answer the call of Christ, and 
begin lives that are guided by the reins of faith and 
love, reins held fast in the sacred hands of Christ. 
Close followers of Him who is mighty in His meek- 
ness and powerful in His poverty, these daughters 
of Mary are living examples of the marvelous power 
of our Catholic faith. 

No thought of self enters the hearts of these 
priceless laborers for God and man. They devote 
themselves to the service of humanity suffering and 
sorrowful and poor, and with whole-hearted devo- 

[85] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

tion and sacrifice they bind themselves to this service 
without reservation, offering all their talents and 
time. 

Trained in the retirement of Nazareth home, 
molded after the example of Mary the Mother of 
God, they move through their days with their eyes 
on earth and their thoughts in heaven. 

Taught in the school of sanctity, they strive daily 
so to train as to be worthy followers of Him who 
insists that " thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self." Moved by this command, these spouses of 
Christ bind themselves to the service of God and 
man by the golden cord of charity, that golden cord 
of the triple strands — poverty, chastity, and obedi- 
ence. 

Their vow of poverty holds them ever close to 
the heart of the poor and needy. 

Their vow of chastity holds them ever close to 
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to the heart of their 
Mother, Mary. 

Their vow of obedience holds them ever close to 
Almighty God. 

In Ireland, from the days of St. Brigid, the Mary 
of Ireland, each generation has seen young maidens 
in multitudes come from the doors of Irish homes, 
as the call of Christ sounded clear in their hearts, to 
serve Him and live for Him under the hallowed roof 
of the convent. And the enrolment in God's serv- 
ice of this army of valiant women, who with noble 
action and high ideals have helped to lift Ireland to 
the stars, is but the logical sequence of Irish mothers 

[86] 



THE NUNS OF IRELAND 

and Irish homes, with their Catholic faith and Cath- 
olic atmosphere. 

These saintly souls quietly work with deft fingers 
and trained minds, and with hearts that are lamps 
whereby all may read God's message of love to man. 
Love is their talisman! "Love one another; love 
the good God, and all will go well " were the last 
words of a dying foundress to her spiritual daugh- 
ters as she went to meet Him who " alone remaineth 
an invincible King for ever." 

Lives lived as theirs are must influence all who 
meet them. For instance, what a wealth of prac- 
tical charity there is in these few maxims of the holy 
foundress of a congregation of nuns : 

" Speak softly; reverence age; take the lowest 
place and the worst of whatever is offered to you; 
never give an unasked opinion; never judge any one, 
even in thought; never contradict; never give a 
short answer; show special attention to those who 
are not agreeable to you; practise little mortifica- 
tions each day at table." 

Of one whose acts accord with such maxims the 
poet in truth may write : 

" Her mind is a river of light, 
Her heart is a well of love." 

And of course she is always happy, as the joyous 
laughter testifies that bubbles over from the beau- 

[8 7 ] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

tiful child-heart of the nun in every convent recrea- 
tion room in the land. " Did you think that when 
we put on our habits we left our hearts and our 
smiles outside? " said one wise old foundress to an 
inquirer who pictured a nun's life as somber. 

The results of their work prove the truth of this. 
These joyous-hearted women have sweetened and 
made endurable by their presence that former monu- 
ment of ineptitude, the poorhouse. The sound of 
their voices banishes the dreary gloom of neglect, 
and fills the heart of the deserted one with fresh 
courage. Those cold halls take on an aspect of 
home as the sister moves across them. At the touch 
of her hand the world-weary eyes brighten, and they 
gaze in gratitude at her who lives side by side with 
them, serving them in divine charity until they close 
their tired eyes in death. 

As teachers, they are models of refinement, gentle- 
ness, holiness, and sacrifice. For over a thousand 
years nuns have been training Irish womanhood, and 
it is no wonder that they keep the hearts of the 
women of Ireland filled with splendid ideals. They 
stand unrivalled as molders of the minds of children. 
All creeds recognize this. A Protestant gentleman, 
when asked by the writer why he sought to place 
his only daughter at a nuns' school, replied: " I am 
an Englishman and the son of a parson. I was ed- 
ucated at one of the great public schools of Eng- 
land. My wife, an American, was educated at a 
famous girls' college in America. There is one 
thing that both of us are quite determined on, and 

[88] 



THE NUNS OF IRELAND 

that is, that we shall entrust the education of our 
child to no one but a Catholic nun." 

When erring woman turns in penitence to God, 
the Church like a true mother sends her to the home 
where these purest of her daughters dwell, knowing 
that there she will receive the welcome of a mother 
and sister. For the nun knows that every soul is 
signed with the seal of brotherhood with Christ. 

It is the vocation of a nun to save souls, and as 
soon as her training is ended she begins her life- 
work. This generally means humble self-efface- 
ment and retirement. But at times their work at- 
tracts notice, and the world focuses its limelight 
upon them, and is astonished, as is the way of this 
foolish old world of ours, at their rare qualities. 
The flash of that light, however, does not dazzle the 
nuns; they move quietly about their work, mindful 
only of the light of the Master, and listening always 
to His voice. 

On all the battle-fronts they have been working 
in hospitals, succoring the wounded, and comfort- 
ing the dying. The world rings with praises of 
their heroism, and has gazed wonderingly while 
many have been decorated for exceptional bravery. 

But, despite the astonishment of the world, this 
is no new thing. Look at that act of a Tipperary 
nun in the Franco-Prussian War. While tending 
the wounded, she saw a large bomb fall where sev- 
eral were lying. She rushed across, placed the 
smoking bomb in her apron, and carried it to a safe 
distance. Then she threw it from her, and cast 

[89] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

herself face down upon the ground. In a few sec- 
onds the bomb burst with terrific force, but she 
marvelously escaped injury. The whole army rang 
with praises of her bravery. The Commander-in- 
Chief ordered a parade, sent for the nun, and, after 
warmly eulogizing her, pinned to her black habit 
the cross of the Legion of Honor. She stood with 
downcast eyes while the cheers of the saluting sol- 
diers filled the air. Then she turned to the Gen- 
eral, and in all simplicity and humility asked, " Are 
you done with me, now, General? for I must go to 
nurse my poor wounded soldiers who are waiting for 
me." Always calm, with the calm that comes from 
the realized presence of Christ. 

During the American Civil War, Irish nuns tended 
the wounded of both armies. Sister Anthony, a 
Limerick nun, is famous still as " The Ministering 
Angel of the Army of the Tennessee." A great 
hospital built in her honor stands in an American 
city to-day. 

A shy Irish nun headed the band of sisters who 
nursed our soldiers at the Crimea. They shrank 
not from duty that meant death, and many were 
laid to rest in white-crossed graves on the hill-side of 
Balaclava. So nobly did all acquit themselves, that 
on the return of the troops to Southampton the 
Commanding Officer ordered them to march by his 
side at the head of the regiments, and share in the 
welcome given by the nation. 

But such publicity is utterly distasteful to them, 
and they are not happy until they find themselves 

[90] 



THE NUNS OF IRELAND 

back in their loved convent homes, where they can 
labor unnoticed, and spend themselves helping the 
lowly and the weak. 

During the great war now happily over, the out- 
side world gazed in astonishment at the wonderful 
bravery of our nuns, and the expert help given by 
them on the battlefield, and none dare now speak of 
their " wasted " lives. War has but revealed quali- 
ties that have always existed in the hearts of our 
nuns — heroic sacrifice and practical piety. But 
how many, even among Catholics, know of their 
splendid work through long years of peace? For 
example, take their work in the congested districts in 
the West of Ireland. Statesmen and RjDyal Com- 
missions wrestled unsuccessfully with the problem of 
relieving the acute distress there, and finally, in des- 
pair, said that nothing but emigration could cure 
the evil. A few black-robed nuns glided in quietly 
armed only with Catholic faith. Prophecies of fail- 
ure met them on every hand. " It is God's work, 
and He must help His people " was the only answer 
of the heroic leader. God did help the work: a 
splendid woolen mill stands there now, giving work 
to all. Close by stands a cooperative creamery, 
also begun by the nuns. As a result, the whole 
country-side, formerly poor and desolate, now smiles 
in plenty. 

That is ever the spirit of the nun. All our great 
sisterhoods sprang from one pair of hands and a 
giant heart, that fearlessly faced poverty, obloquy, 
and fierce opposition, and conquered all difficulties. 

[9i] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Youghal was languishing in poverty. God's nuns 
came in and started a lace factory, that in a short 
time was paying in wages £2,000 a year. When 
the factory was firmly established, they called the 
workers together, and gave them the factory, as co- 
operative workers. 

They have acted similarly in several towns, for 
these daughters of Mary work not for money : 

" In Him unseen, their wealth they hoard; 
They sit in self-oblivion sweet, 
The virgin spouses of their Lord, 
Beside the Virgin Mother's feet." 

The only thing on earth marked with their name 
in sign of ownership is the plain wooden cross that 
tells where they lie when their work on earth is 
ended. They ask nothing for themselves. The 
first two hours of each day are spent in communion 
with God at meditation and Mass, and the rest of 
their waking hours are given to the people. 

When Ireland with bleeding hands strove to bind 
the gaping wounds of penal days, and while famine 
and sickness held her children fast, these heroic 
daughters of Ireland sprang to help their mother. 
They succored the famished, nursed the sick, closed 
the eyes of the dying, and buried the dead. 

In sickness or in health, their one thought is the 
interests of Christ. To-day in Ireland, in the cor- 
ner of a bare little cell, there lies one who after a long 
life spent in the service of God has been stricken 
with an incurable disease. Each year, outside her 

[92] 



THE NUNS OF IRELAND 

little window, an Irish rose blooms and taps upon the 
pane, moved by the fragrant summer breeze that 
comes sweeping lazily across orchard and meadow. 
But she sees it not. Her eyes have been eaten away, 
and she lies there, year after year, totally blind. 
Her body is a flame of excruciating pain, and she 
can sleep but in snatches of a few moments, and 
marks each hour of the day and night as the years 
pass slowly by. Yet, in spite of all, in spite of the 
corroding disease, in spite of the biting pain, in 
spite of the blindness, her heart is steady and full 
of confidence in God. No thought of murmuring 
against her affliction crosses her mind; not a syllable 
of complaint passes her lips. She sees in all the 
hand of Christ, pressing His cross upon her, a cross 
to be carried till death gives victory. 

Such resignation is truly heroic; but this blind 
Irish daughter of Mary climbs to even greater 
heights of faith and sacrifice. Not only does she 
bear her affliction with resignation, but in joyful 
charity she prizes it as a means of drawing souls to 
God. Through the years she lies in her silent cell, 
unceasingly offering her sufferings to God for forget- 
ful sinners. Love triumphs over torture. Night 
and day she pleads to God in sublime self-forgetful- 
ness — " Let my sufferings save a soul each second, 
O my Jesus, a soul each second." Truly a model of 
heroic resignation and faith. How fortunate are 
the children of Ireland in being trained by such 
heroic souls! They lift the nation and hold it close 
to God. 

[93] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

There is a little convent on an Irish plain, far 
from the noise of towns. Winding boreens go slip- 
ping by its white walls, and lose themselves in a 
maze of hedgerows. A quiet canal comes curving 
in between banks of green to look at it before bend- 
ing away to join the rushing Shannon. That con- 
vent is a center to which the whole country-side 
turns. Through the generations its nuns have held 
the hearts of the people. As little children, these 
people came running along those boreens to the 
school of the good nuns. School-days ended, they 
came as children of Mary to worship God in the 
quiet convent chapel. Later again, as wives and 
mothers, they cluster round the gentle nuns for 
guidance and consolation. 

Behind its high wall the convent stands, looking 
down upon a little garden of flowers that goes creep- 
ing into the shade of a clump of tall pines. A nar- 
row path slips between the flowers to where, in the 
shadow of the trees, little white crosses mark the 
flower-covered convent graves. But to-day there is 
one spot where the flowers have drawn back, and the 
brown earth curves in sorrow: it is the grave of one 
whose soul, after sixty-three years of loyal service 
within the circle of that convent wall, has soared to 
heaven. Her sisters carried the worn body into the 
shadow of the trees, but there was no shadow on 
their hearts, for such a death is a triumph. 

Such souls and such homes of God abound in 
every part of Ireland, and are one of the chief 
sources of her strength. 

[94] 



THE NUNS OF [RELAND 

But not in Ireland alone do they labor. Im- 
pelled by love, these doves of the tabernacle in 
gentle flight have circled the earth in eager search 
for souls. True children of St. Patrick, they carry 
the torch of faith to every land, and strive to light 
the darkness of the nations. No difficulty daunts 
them. See that band of Irish nuns dragged in 
drays across the prairies for a fortnight, and from 
the wilds of the West writing back to Ireland — 
" We are quite happy, for we find here Our Lord in 
the Blessed Sacrament, and souls to save for I Km." 
A temperature or fifty degrees below freezing-point 
played harmlessly round the flame of love that 
burned in the hearts of those heroines. 

Over the summits of the Andes, by the side of 
the frozen Yukon, our Irish nuns have gone. Un- 
der the shadow of the Himalayas, by the sluggish 
rivers and canals of China, through African forests, 
on Australian plains, by the rushing rivers of New 
Zealand, these heroines move and work, like tfieir 
Master, " doing good." Brides of Christ, they are 
strong with the strength of Christ, and face horrors 
that have daunted the hearts of brave men. Nor 
let us forget that these sublime heights are gained 
by these heroines, not through lack of human nature, 
but because of their control of human nature. 

See the little nun in the bottom of the boat be- 
low the jutting wharf of Molokai. She had bravely 
come to spend her life for the lepers and die among 
them. But when the boat drew into the shadow of 
the wharf and she looked up and saw the awful row 

[95] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

of fetid humanity that peered down at her — nose- 
less, lipless, earless — fungus-covered remnants, the 
sudden horror of the sight was too much for her 
physically, and she fell in a passion of tears in the 
bottom of the boat. But soon the paroxysm, wrung 
from nature, passed, and with firm step she mounted 
to the wharf to the souls that awaited her, and she 
is bravely working there to-day. 

In mercy and charity they have girdled the earth 
with homes where the outcast and poor and sick may 
rest. To their great hearts they gather the weak 
ones of the earth. They are mothers to the young, 
daughters to the aged, sisters to the erring. Here 
we find them guarding the orphan that stood shrink- 
ing in pitiful helplessness at the beginning of the 
road of life; there they smooth the pillow of the 
aged, who at the end of the road await the merging 
of time into eternity. 

Ireland counts these her heroic daughters among 
her greatest glories. They are welcomed with af- 
fectionate reverence in every land. And rightly so, 
for the whole world is their home, and all mankind 
their brother. 



[96] 



CHAPTER X 

SOGGARTH AROON 

' I V HE priesthood of the Catholic Church, stand- 

-*• ing shoulder to shoulder in unbroken ranks, 
from the crucified St. Peter on the Vatican Hill to 
the prisoner Pope of the Vatican to-day, holds the 
divine force that vivifies and directs mankind. 

A fearless army, it goes striding in undying vital- 
ity across the centuries, carrying through every land 
God's message to man. It has routed the forces of 
paganism and barbarism, rolled back the poison-gas 
of materialism, and sown the seeds of love and 
liberty and enlightenment. 

He who would write of the doings of this army 
must needs write the history of the human race, for 
the march of that army is the history of mankind, 
history written by the finger of God, history that 
makes simple all the problems of creation. And 
the writer must be one with vision broad enough 
to enable him to measure the heights of heroism 
attained by Catholic priests, men who sacrifice 
friends, home, country, and life itself, if need be, at 
the call of Christ. 

The very nature of the mission of the priest sup- 
poses a soul cast in heroic mold. His is no light 
call. It is a soldier call that means in tender years 

[97] 



1111 SOUL OF IRELAND 

a severance from the strong ties oi blood. " Fol- 
low Mo" means the renunciation oi much that is 
naturally dear to the human heart, and he who re- 
sponds must be made oi lino metal. As ho stops 
into the r.mlvs, the command oi the Leader sounds 
in his ear — "deny thyself; take up tin cross." 
Year after year passes in the school oi self-denial, 
purifying and strengthening the strong foundation 
ot natural force <>i character that is his. Ills call 
is from God, and he realizes this. His character, 
strong enough primarily to resist the call ol the 
world, lias by long and steady training all its facul- 
ties ami powers hillv and scientifically developed. 
lie must first conquer himself, the most ditlicult oi 
all conquests, lor " he who conquers himself is 
greater than he who takes a city." 

At the end of his training he is raised to an office 

that plaees him between God and man as an alter 
Chris tus. The priest spends his lite, heedless ol 
himself, in directing souls to the waiting Savior of 
the world, lie is the guardian of the life ot' the 
world. As the dispenser oi the sacraments, he is 
the center of God's work on earth. B) the priest 
is continued the distribution ol' the Bread ol' I il'e 
that was first placed on the table ot' the 1 ast Supper. 
As one of a regal priesthood, he receives the soul at 
birth, guards and directs it through lite, and at death 
sends it with certainty and in satctv its journey back 
to the Master who created it. 

" 1 have chosen you that you may bear fruit: go 
teach all nations," is their divine commission, and 

[9*J 



SOGGAR'l II AROON 

the history of the- universal Church shows how mag- 
nificently her priesthood has responded. Caring 
nothing for any notice or reward hut the " well 
done " of Christ, they have ever been in the van of 
civilization. On the Yukon, before the goldseekers, 
they labored for years in icy Alaska of the awful 
silence; they were the pioneers of Canada and 
North America, the first whites to venture among 
the terrible Indians; we find them in the- pathless 
forests of the Amazon, and on the rolling plains of 
South America, carrying their lives in their hands. 

Centuries before our modern explorers (hey pene- 
trated the fastnesses of Africa. They crossed Asia 
from Syria to China, on to Japan, and down the 
Pacific islands. 

In the past, the priest has done his work unheeded 
by men; but to-day the red scourge ol war, dis- 
sipating the darkness ol materialism, has forced a 
careless world to acknowledge the grandeur of his 
ideals and his unique self-sacrifice. In times ol 
great crisis, the innate nobility of the human heart 
shines out, conventions and prejudices shrivel and 
die, and man takes his stand lirmly and unhesitat- 
ingly upon the rock of truth and honor. In sueli 
times, truth stands in the naked light ol life, clear 
for all to see, and there is no place for those whose 
gospel, however disguised, means that the highest 
ideal of man cannot lift him above the mud. 

To-day religion has come into its own again. 
No longer sneered at, it is recognized as the founda- 
tion of the highest form of bravery, enabling men to 

[99] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

attain sublime heights of selfless heroism. On every 
side men have turned in reverence to God. All 
Christians have bowed before their Leader and 
King, Christ Jesus. Man, when he looks eye to 
eye with death, stands free from folly, and turns 
instinctively to his Creator with a heartfelt cry for 
aid. This is especially true of the children of holy 
mother Church, the guardian of the whole truth 
of God and the dispenser of His miraculous sacra- 
mental gifts to mankind. 

Thus it is that to-day the world, rapt in admira- 
tion, recognizes the heroism of Christ's cross-bearer 
— the Catholic priest. To realize the truth of this, 
look for a moment at our great ally, France. 

The first breath of war scattered the deadly fumes 
of materialism, with which foolish men, forgetting 
that they are but clay vivified by the breath of God, 
were striving to enshroud her. Stirred to the 
depths, she has risen in splendid greatness, upheld 
by her Catholic traditions. Her priests are the men 
who, by their unrecognized valor, have in spite of 
banishment and imprisonment, of punishment and 
poverty, held aloft the flag of Christ in France in 
the past. To-day, thanks to their teaching, France 
in her trouble is turning as a nation whole-heartedly 
to God and His Church. This is the secret of the 
strength of France. Even those alien to us in faith 
are now acknowledging this, as may be seen by these 
words from the pen of a French Protestant: 

" The psychological historian who shall under- 
[ioo] 



SOGGARTH AROON 

take the task of analyzing the deep causes of the 
unexpected strength of the resistance offered by 
France to the invader of 19 14 will find himself com- 
pelled to note, amongst other new factors of the 
first importance, a strong revival of religious feeling. 
And one of the elements of this reawakening is the 
presence in such large numbers, and the example so 
often heroic, of the priests with the colors. And 
this is without reckoning the deaths of priests as 
priests, shot in the fulfillment of their sacred duties, 
and falling as martyrs in their blood-stained cas- 
socks." 

We Catholics require no " psychological his- 
torian " to find for us the cause of the strength of 
those lion-hearted soldiers and priests, our brothers 
and fathers in Christ. We know that it is because 
they possess the perfection of manhood promised by 
Christ to all who believe in Him and obey Him. 

Again, the whole world still rings with the 
praises of that great priest, Cardinal Mercier, who 
in ardent patriotism and fervent piety stands by 
gallant King Albert and leads Belgium. How our 
hearts thrill as we look upon this splendid figure, 
towering, a veritable Colossus, above stricken Bel- 
gium, and rousing the world by his words of fire! 
Oh, the strength of the faith that makes utterance 
such as his possible ! While his country still quivered 
beneath a hell-burst, a wilderness of smoking roof- 
trees, of hearths ensanguined by the blood of her 
murdered children, with the roar of battle in his 

[101] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

ears, he stood, calm and confident, and looked for 
redress to Jesus and Mary. 

Truly, there is no armor like the armor of a good 
conscience; no vision like the vision that sees clear 
through the blinding mists of earth to the welcoming 
hand of Christ. The priest possesses both these, 
and they enable him to weigh existing evils in the 
balance of eternity. The priests in the trenches 
did only what their brothers have been doing 
through the centuries, and showed that like them 
they are possessed of a valor and steadiness of pur- 
pose that not even death itself could daunt. Their 
only thought was for souls. Their orders from their 
Commander-in-Chief were " teach all nations," and 
wherever men needed them, there they were to be 
found. They have always been animated by this 
spirit of sacrifice. Whether in the quiet of the semi- 
nary and the sacristy, or the riot and ruin of the bat- 
tlefield, matters not, — heroes all, they press on, fol- 
lowing the beckoning hand of Christ. Such heroes 
are to be found in every nation and in every genera- 
tion, towering high above all other men, lifting souls 
to God, and gaining the undying love of all who know 
them. Persecution has but multiplied them, and 
death increased their strength, adding their names 
to the unending line of martyrs and confessors that 
is the glory of our Church. 

Of no country is this more true than of Ireland; 
for while in other lands the torch of persecution 
burned fitfully, with her it burned in steady blaze 
through long centuries. Yet, with a fervor and 

[102] 



SOGGARTH AROON 

bravery almost unrivalled, Ireland remained faithful 
to God and His priest; and out of awful suffering 
endured together, the priest has a place in the heart 
of Ireland that is unique upon earth. 

Ireland is securely anchored to the Sacred Heart 
of Jesus and to Mary, and he to whom after God she 
is indebted for this is the foremost of her heroes, 
he whom in loving reverence her children have 
named " Soggarth Aroon." 

Soggarth ! name of reverence, recognizing and re- 
alizing fully the majesty of the divine power that he 
holds. 

Aroon! name of love, telling of the outpouring of 
an affection without equal on earth. 

Soggarth Aroon! He has ever been the faithful 
guardian of the people, the good shepherd cease- 
lessly watching in selfless devotion over the flock. 

When Ireland had to choose between the torture 
and death of Calvary and the soft ease of earth, led 
by her priest sons she fearlessly set her feet upon the 
Way of the Cross. As we have seen when we 
looked at her martyrdom, her Soggarth was classed 
with the wolf, and legally could be killed at sight. 
" No priest to be left in Ireland " was the order. 
The high sea-cliff saw them bound back to back, and 
pushed to death on the black rocks below; trapped 
in the Mass cave, they died in a reek of smoke; sold 
to the slave trader and transported, they worked 
till death under the lash of their owner; from end 
to end of the land their bodies swung in the shadow 
of the " priest's tree." Every gallows in the coun- 

[103] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

try shook as priest after priest climbed the ladders 
at the bidding of their would-be exterminators. But 
transportation, prison, torture, death — all were of 
no avail. It was death for a priest to be found in 
Ireland, and death for a father to send his son out 
of Ireland to be trained as a priest. Yet, no sooner 
did one fall than another sprang to take his place. 
For in an unending stream boys from Irish homes 
stole to the Continent, and, with hearts aflame with 
love, followed an ideal that touches the highest point 
of heroism that man may reach — close imitation 
of the Hero of heroes — our Savior Jesus Christ. 
Scarce was the oil of anointing dry upon their hands 
than they hurried back to their stricken brethren, 
ready — aye, willing — to die for God and Ireland. 
Every glen and hill has its priest's cave, and too 
often, alas! its priest's tree, speaking eloquently of 
the long line of heroes who guarded Ireland's soul. 

They lit the lamp of faith and kept it burning, 
and no matter what clouds rolled between Ireland 
and the sun of justice and mercy, the light of faith 
ever shone through the darkness and the nation 
stood steady against all assaults. 

Though the Finn-foya, the sweet-toned Mass bell, 
lay silent and broken, the voice of the Soggarth rang 
like a clarion across the desolate land, and filled 
Irish hearts with faith and courage that rose trium- 
phant over torture, starvation, and death. In a 
thousand disguises, he faced death daily as he suc- 
cored his helpless flock. To harbor him was death; 
but the cabin of the poorest was ever a sanctuary for 

[104] 



SOGGARTH AROON 

him and Christ whom he carried, a sanctuary that 
neither menaces nor gold could violate. 

They had no bread and were starving. He fed 
them with Living Bread from heaven. 

They were friendless and outcast. He gave them 
home and Christ. 

Shelterless in the rain and the storm they lay 
dying. He enwrapt them in his mighty love and 
comforted them. 

Through the smoke of the burnings, past the 
hungry gallows, under the cloud of the pestilence, 
braving death at every move, the Soggarth crept to 
them. 

" Ah ! thank God, Soggarth, you have come," 
feebly whispered the piteously tremulous lips, with 
a sigh of content, and at his coming death lost its 
terror; the trembling soul, steadied, leaped with 
confidence to the Sacred Heart of Christ, sure of a 
welcome. At the sound of his voice, the great mists 
of death were banished and changed into the golden 
glory of the home-coming. As the outcast looked 
again upon his loved form, agony left the dying eyes, 
and they were filled with the radiance of victory. 

Weak hands were lifted for the holy anointing. 
The almost pulseless heart beat strong with love as 
in Viaticum the King of Love stole into it and 
rested. The Soggarth crept on to succor other suf- 
ferers, but Christ remained. What cared the soul 
then for biting wind that drove the chilling snow 
upon the wasted, dying body? What cared it for 
the pangs of hunger, for the ditch deathbed? Ob- 

[105] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

livious of all, it sang the praises of Jesus, content in 
the light and love of His divine Presence. 

Over the lonely figure of the Soggarth creeping 
under dripping hedge and by rain-swept ditch-side, 
it saw the angels of heaven bending in lowly adora- 
tion and making his slow progress a triumphal pro- 
cession as they followed the fearless carrier of the 
hidden Christ on his way to the dying. 

It was in days like those, and from deeds like 
those, that the wondrous love that binds Ireland to 
her Soggarth sprang — a love tender with the ten- 
derness of humanity, and strong with the strength 
of divine charity. No wonder that as dying eyes, 
at the whisper of the Soggarth, unclosed and looked 
up to his, and saw him busy with stole and pyx and 
sacred oil — no wonder that dying lips crooned 
gently ami wove in glorious love the soft syllables 
c " Aroon, aroon, Soggarth aroon," around him who 
knelt there with Christ in his hands! It was thus 
that the Soggarth crept into the innermost sanctuary 
of Ireland's heart, there to dwell forever. 

With such leaders, Draconian severity and dire 
poverty were powerless to dim the faith and courage 
of Irish hearts. Men who as babes lay in the dark- 
ness of the secret cave, pressed close to the wildly 
beating breasts of their mothers, while the tread of 
the searching soldiery rustled in the bracken out- 
side, soldiers whose quarry was Catholics, and whose 
sport — death, such men were not likely to value 
lightly the treasure that those mothers fought and 
died to keep. Men who in youth shared the danger 

[106] 



SOGGARTH A'ROON 



X 



of the Soggarth, and knelt bravely by him as he 
dried the tears of Ireland at the holy Mass Rock, 
realized the grandeur of his sacrifice and the nobility 
of his soul, and his spirit caught their young heart 
and filled it, nor left it till it fructified. 

And how marvelous that fructification was is 
shown on every page of the history of Ireland's sons. 
Read the page that tells of the strong man kneeling 
by the roadside in County Tyrone, praying by the 
gray ruins of a little cabin. Floor and hearth are 
buried in a moss of green, and the walls — crum- 
bling at the soft touch of time — have sunk quietly 
back, till Erin holds them hidden in her bosom. 
This is all that remains of the home where in grind- 
ing poverty the kneeling man was born. Tears are 
in his eyes as memory recalls loved forms and voices 
of past days. Under those hedges he crept to sit 
at the feet of the hedge schoolmaster. Above on 
the mountain-side is where the rough wall of turf 
stood, in the shelter of which Mass was celebrated. 
There is the field where as a child he toiled with 
his parents, a field so poor that a day came when a 
sorrowful procession in helpless misery crossed the 
threshold before which he is kneeling. Down the 
mountain boreen he can see it move as clearly as if 
it were but yesterday. Across sixty years of time 
he looks, and sees again his crying mother trying to 
comfort the bewildered children, the face of his fa- 
ther, strong amidst all his anguish, the farewells of 
the kindly neighbors. Every detail of the journey 
is seared upon his mind — the steerage passage, the 

[107] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

landing in a new country to seek the rights denied 
them in their own, the beginning of life anew amid 
strangers. In memory the kneeling man traverses 
the years, years of toil vivified and directed by Irish 
faith, and crowned with success, and he utters a 
heartfelt prayer to God as he recalls how, through 
all vicissitudes, he had kept alight in his heart the 
flame of desire kindled by the example and word of 
the Soggarth, that he too might be a priest. 
" Many a time," so his history records, " many a 
time have I thrown down my rake in the meadow, 
and kneeling behind a hayrick, begged of God and 
the Blessed Virgin to let me become a priest." 

And how God heard his prayer, uttered from the 
depths of the deepest poverty, the whole world 
knows. The boy of the hayfield, strong in faith, 
conquered all obstacles, and attained his desire. 
And now, after half a century, he has come back to 
the field where he uttered that prayer in his help- 
lessness, and kneels in thanksgiving before the 
moldering threshold of the little mountain cabin — 
a mighty leader of men in the land of his adoption, 
John Hughes, archbishop of New York. 

And this great archbishop has compeers un- 
numbered, whose lives are vivified and purified by 
measureless sacrifice. That the faithful in Ireland 
to-day worship God in glorious cathedrals is because 
of the sacrifices of the rain-drenched, starving, home- 
less, heroic Soggarths who died that the Faith might 
live and Ireland hold her precious heritage. 

The Soggarth of the Mass Rock has gone, but his 
[108] 



SOGGARTH AROON 

spirit burns in the hearts of his successors, and the 
grand old Faith remains like a fragrance hallowing 
hill and dale, lifting the soul of Ireland heavenward, 
and giving her the marvelous certitude that the 
Catholic faith alone can give — a certitude that is 
divine. 

Ireland is Ireland because of her priest. High 
above all her heroes in the grandeur of his office 
and in his unparalleled bravery, yet bending in love 
and humility beneath the lowliest of the lowly, the 
Soggarth stands, a glory to his Church and to Ire- 
land, a splendid figure holding the key of eternity. 



[109] 



CHAPTER XI 

MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

\X7E have looked on the splendid valor of the 
* * Irish in the cause of Him whom they meet in 
" the sweet Mass," and with loving, familiar rever- 
ence speak of as " Jesus Christ, my dearest, my most 
loyal Friend." 

We have marked their steadfastness through the 
centuries, and seen how the vigor and vitality of the 
heart of Ireland is as strong to-day as ever, stud- 
ding the land with seminaries and monasteries and 
convents, homes of God, wherein His chosen ones 
are trained. 

Mighty Maynooth, foremost among the schools 
of Ireland of all times, sheltering and training well- 
nigh a thousand Levites, and from whose broad 
gates yearly they pass in a steady stream, that flows 
out across the land and over the earth, stands in the 
center. All Hallows, with its legion in training for 
the foreign mission, looks over the eastern sea. 

Between St. Columb's at Derry and St. Colman's 
in Cork, everywhere are buildings filled with fervent 
souls, Christ's chosen ones, who kneel around Him, 
and whose one aim in life is the furtherance of the 
work of the Master. 

Men wonder at Ireland's far-flung armies of 
[no] 



MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

priests and nuns. They marvel at this world- 
moving energy, and, almost in bewilderment, seek 
for the force that gathers these armies and sends 
them across the world, filled with undying en- 
thusiasm. 

This astonishment is but natural, for the number 
of vocations that God has given to Ireland, the num- 
ber of her children that He has honored by choosing 
them to follow Him closely and spend life in His 
service, would astonish us also, did we not know the 
cause of the gift. 

As we gaze at those roofs and turrets and spires 
we think of that far-flung army that has marched 
from beneath them. The mind in meditation looks 
beyond those towering battlements, beyond those 
valiant soldiers, and sees the real supports of those 
walls, the real trainers of that army. Behind the 
holy nun and brother in school and hospital, behind 
each priest at the altar, stand those who, after 
Christ, are the foundation and motive force of all 
— the low-voiced, sweet-faced, holy mothers of the 
Irish. 

These mothers live quiet, simple lives, as did 
God's chosen people of old — tending their flocks 
and supplying their few wants by daily toil. 
Worldly pleasures are weighed by them in the bal- 
ance of Christ, and rejected if found wanting. 
Among them is no holocaust of souls under the 
wheels of the juggernaut car of fashion; no loss of 
self-respect by joining the rushing legions of the 
votaries of pleasure. In silent prayer and work 

[in] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

their days are passed. Calm with the calmness that 
comes from steadfastly gazing at eternity; clear in 
judgment, with the clearness of mind that belongs 
to those who flash the light of the lantern of death 
upon the things of earth; strong with the strength 
that grows from companionship with Christ; gentle 
with the gentleness that fills the heart bound to 
the heart of the Mother of Christ; living lives that 
are conformed to the will of Christ; dying they go 
confidently to meet Him who is to satisfy the daily 
longing of their hearts. The empty world heeds 
not their passing, but highest heaven rings with the 
joyous anthems that the angels sing as God welcomes 
them home. 

Here we have the source of Ireland's fervent 
ambassadors of Christ, the fount from which springs 
enthusiasm for His interests, the guardian to whom 
Christ has entrusted His soldiers for guidance. It 
is the lessons that a man learns from his mother's 
knee, the principles that she instills, the courage that 
she breathes into him, that really influence him in 
after life. She it is that takes the plastic soul, fresh 
from the hands of God, and with loving care can 
mold that soul to goodness and greatness. 

The Irish mother cooperates with Christ in the 
saving of souls, and cooperates willingly, even 
though the pressure of the cross be felt keenly upon 
her loving heart. Wherever you see her she is at 
God's work. The souls of her children are an in- 
violable trust to her from God, and she guards them 
with her life. For her the call of earth unheeded 

[1.2] 



MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

falls on ears attuned to celestial music, the chords 
of which ever vibrate in her heart. 

God's praises are ever on her lips in frequent 
speech. She passes her days calling down blessings 
on all whom she meets. " Bannacth lath " — a 
blessing with you. " A thousand praises to God " 
springs naturally from her heart, whatever befalls 
her. How cold our " thank you " for a favor re- 
ceived sounds, when contrasted with her " may God 
spare your life," " may the Lamb of God be with 
you at the hour of death," or " may God and Mary 
protect you." 

Well might she sit for the portrait of the valiant 
woman of Sacred Scripture. " The heart of her 
husband trusteth in her; she will render him good, 
not evil, all the days of her life." We have seen 
how " she hath opened her heart to the needy, and 
stretched out her hand to the poor," and noted that 
" the law of clemency is on her tongue." 

Mark her well as she moves with swift hands 
through the daily working for her subjects — " she 
hath looked well to the paths of her house and hath 
not eaten her bread idle "; and at night as she sits 
at the wide hearth " her fingers have taken hold of 
the spindle." 

Need we wonder that " her children rose up and 
called her blessed, her husband, and he praised 
her," for " the woman that loveth the Lord she 
shall be praised — let her works praise her in the 
gates." 

The children of such mothers early learn the path 

["3] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

to the church. To see a mother taking a child 
around the Stations of the Cross, and hear her ex- 
plaining in words of burning love the meaning of 
each, from the shouldering of the cross in Pilate's 
court to the lonely funeral, with Mary as chief 
mourner, is a nev r er-to-be-forgotten lesson in faith 
and holiness. This is the training that is responsible 
for the spirit of wonderfully vivid faith that is to 
be seen everywhere, and which fructifies in number- 
less vocations. 

God to this people is not a mysterious distant 
Being, whose existence is scarce realized, or at most 
only carelessly thought of, and given no place in 
their lives, but a beneficent Creator and loving 
Friend, ceaselessly guarding them as a parent does 
a child; One who in His splendid love has come 
down and actually dwells with them, and who, their 
King, is always ready to give them audience in His 
throne-room — the church. 

That the Christ of Calvary — of Bethlehem, is 
their closest Friend, and a sacred member of the 
family, can readily be seen by him who watches the 
loving affection that is shown by those who kneel on 
Christmas morn before the crib, or are bent in 
reverence before the crucifix, and who marks how 
they move through their lives in converse with Him. 
For these the tabernacle has no door — they look 
direct to the Heart of Christ. 

Thus it comes that the child going to school stops 
its play as it approaches the church, and runs to 
kneel for a moment at the altar rail; that the work- 

[ii4] 



MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

man going to and from work kneels before his best 
Friend; and young men and maidens slip quietly 
in, faithful to the training of the mother. 

Look at eventide at the home hallowed by the 
presence of the Irish mother. Whether it be amid 
the long sea-arms of Kerry, the blue mountains of 
Donegal and Antrim, on the green pastures of Meath 
or the towering hills of Wicklow, all the members 
of each household go moving rapidly to where she 
sits waiting, rosary in hand, by the hallowed hearth. 
The father comes from the forge or the shop of the 
shoemaker, where he has been " colloguing " with 
the elders, and the boys leave their games. Round 
her they kneel, and she begins the evening prayer 
of Ireland — the rosary of their Mother, Muire. 

Nightly the angels look down and exult as they 
see the nation kneeling before God, and hear that 
mighty cry for succor. Ireland, bound by the chain 
of the rosary to Mary, Queen of Heaven. 

And oh ! how they love that home ! For them 
the word is sacred, and means a kingdom, wherein 
the mother reigns securely " until death do us 
part," words of the sacrament, that have meaning 
when uttered by her lips. No matter how lowly 
the home may be, nothing but stress of circum- 
stance will ever cause them to leave it. 

I remember seeing an old Irish mother as she 
crossed for the last time the threshold of what had 
once been her home and that of generations of her 
people before her. The roof had been torn off, 
and the broken windows, like sightless eyes, stared 

[ii5] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

dark across the white road from the tomb of 
domestic happiness behind them. 

She threw herself upon the earth in a passion of 
tears. Lying there, quivering with anguish, she 
pressed her lips again and again to the stone 
threshold of the door, the stone that is looked upon 
as holy because of the generations of lips that have 
uttered the prayer of welcome above it. Worn 
deep by countless footsteps, it was sanctified by the 
unending litany " God's blessing on you " of every 
one who entered the house. 

Poor grief-stricken soul ! How often through 
the years she had cheerily answered that salutation 
uttered above the stone, now wet with her tears. 
As she said farewell to the wreckage that was all 
that was left of her home, she saw once again the 
faces of long-lost friends as they stood above it. 
She peopled the past with loved forms, and the 
" God save all here " and the " God save you 
kindly " of dear dead voices sounded in her ear and 
beat upon her heart. 

This intense love of home is the source of one of 
the greatest of Ireland's sorrows, causing an unend- 
ing heartache, not only to her exiled children, but 
to the waiting mothers as well. How like to Mary, 
dwelling alone in her house at Nazareth, are those 
mothers of the chosen ones laboring in the service 
of God. They guarded the treasure lent to them by 
God, and wrapped it round with their love and their 
life. Then at His call, even though it meant sever- 

[116] 



MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

ance from the " light of their life," they gave that 
treasure willingly for work in the vineyard of the 
Master. Just as Mary moved through the silent 
rooms of Nazareth, when her loved One had gone, 
living again the bygone days, and praying for re- 
union, so, too, do these heroines — mothers of the 
battalions of Maynooth, of the golden souls that 
have passed under the portals of All Hallows, and 
of saintly Irish nuns. And like Mary, their reunion 
with their loved ones will come only when the gates 
of death shall have been passed. 

Besides those mothers who have given their 
children for God's work, other mothers there are, 
parted from their children by the accidents of life, 
who sit at home wearily waiting for the sound of a 
step that never falls. Yet, though separated by 
wide, rolling seas, there is no sundering of hearts. 
From every land on earth, filaments of love, tying 
heart to heart, white-winged messages of affection 
are flashing. Like snowflakes they drift across the 
seas, and come pouring down in Ireland. Over the 
fields and the brown bogs they fly, into the moun- 
tains and the hills, till they come to rest in the 
hands of the loved ones waiting. Whence come 
these snowflakes? They come from Erin's children 
" on the waves of the world," sending their love 
and its tokens. Letters of the scattered children 
of the homes, they speed to the heart of the waiting 
mother, and still for the moment its longing. Love 
that is true finds expression in deeds, and this quality 

["7] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

is not wanting in the love of the exiles, for in the 
space of twenty years they have sent to their homes 
as many million pounds sterling. 

When darkness instead of light is sent to them 
across the sea, consolation and resignation, touching 
to see, comes to them from their fervent faith. 

I knew a mother whose only son — the center of 
all her hopes and affections — was killed in America. 
No one could summon up courage to break the news 
to her. On the following Sunday a thoughtless 
half-witted creature went to her as she knelt in 
prayer after Mass. 

" Sorry," she said, " that your son is dead." 

" Oh, no," said the mother, " he is not dead, he is 
quite well." 

"He is dead," insisted the simpleton; "a big 
beam fell on him and crushed him, but they don't 
want to let you know." 

She gazed horror-stricken at some neighbors 
near, and they reluctantly confirmed the truth of 
the words of the foolish speaker. Reeling under 
the blow, the poor mother clung to the communion 
rail, moaning piteously. After the first rush of 
overmastering grief had passed, she steadied herself, 
clasped her hands, and with eyes raised to the 
tabernacle, cried thrice: "God's will be done!" 
and added : " Oh, Jesu mavourneen, he is safer and 
happier with You than with those that do not know 
You in America ! " 

There is a little village on the central plain of 
Ireland — just a cluster of white-walled cabins 

[118] 



MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

sheltered by a clump of dark pine trees, circled by 
the purple of the moor. In one of these dwells a 
typical Irish mother. Filled with a gentle dignity 
is she, and contented, although measured by worldly 
standards her life might seem lonely and hard. She 
is ever patient and calm. Leaning on her staff 
she says to the sympathetic visitor: " Our Lord is 
good, and He wishes me to suffer; welcome be His 
holy will." This is how she explains the paralysis 
with which she is afflicted. All her children are 
in America and " doing well, thank God." They 
have written often, begging her to come to them, 
but she always refuses. She wishes to be buried 
in the shadow of the church in which she was bap- 
tized, and " go to heaven from Ireland." She has 
their photographs ranged above the fireplace, and 
before them the live-long day she sits, rosary 
in hand, " taking the full of my eyes of them, 
and praying for them, for they need prayers 
living among those who never darken a church 
door." 

What a shield between her loved ones and evil 
are the prayers of that holy soul! There she is 
sitting to-day, with a smile of greeting for all who 
visit her in her home in the center of the land of 
faith and of prayer. 

" There are saints e'en to-day in Old Erin, who walk along 
life's lowly ways, 
From whose hearts there is ever ascending the tribute of 
love and of praise. 

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THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Like the gold that is tried in the furnace, their souls come 

triumphant through pain, 
For they trust in the word of the Master, and welcome 

each cross as their gain." 

An Irish mother! She is foremost among the 
hidden saints of earth. A follower of Christ, whose 
cloister is within the four walls of the home, wherein 
she reigns as a queen! A lover of Christ, whose 
little kingdom comprises the treasured souls that 
God has given her to guide. A ruler for Christ, 
who draws her subjects to her by sanctity and love. 
Her toil-worn hands that clasp the old brown rosary 
are eloquent of strength to seize and lift to good 
all souls they meet; her lips are molded to lines 
of peace by years of unending prayer and murmured 
benisons over sleeping babes; upon her brow eternal 
calm and resignation sit enthroned; her eyes are 
lit by the light of serene confidence, that tells of a 
heart secure in the friendship of God. 

Irish mothers! You know God, and know 
nothing apart from Him! You acknowledge no 
success that is obtained without Him! You meas- 
ure the earth with the breadth of vision that comes 
from the contemplation of eternity! 

Patient with the patience of the martyr! Strong 
with the strength of Christ ! The very sight of you 
lifts men's thoughts to God, for O Irish mothers! 
you are the living embodiment of the spirit of our 
faith. 

1 look back to Ireland, and hear the prayers of 

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MOTHERS OF IRELAND 

Irish mothers filling the land, as they send shafts 
of love in incessant pleading to the Creator on be- 
half of their dear ones, and I know that the future 
of Ireland is safe while that army of mothers moves 
through her valleys and across her plains, bringing 
Christ's benison on their country. No wonder that 
they are holy, for what is sanctity but poverty and 
perfect conformity to the will of God! 

Saintly Irish mothers ! Pray for us to the 
Sacred Heart of Him whom you know and love so 
well! 



[121] 



CHAPTER XII 

MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

~^HE martyrdom of Ireland forms one of the 
A most awful and yet one of the most glorious 
pages in the history of the world. Awful, in the 
deliberate malignity of the long persecution; 
glorious, in the splendid valor of the faith that 
triumphed over all. Christendom knows no parallel 
to this page of Irish history. Bitter persecutions 
it had felt from the earliest ages; but never before 
had it seen a whole nation, men, women, and chil- 
dren, unfalteringly climb Calvary to crucifixion; 
never before had it seen the martyrdom of a people. 
The Island of Saints and Scholars was to pass 
through the furnace of suffering, and become the 
Island of Martyrs. 

The guilt and shame of this martyrdom is to be 
laid, not upon the English people, but upon those 
in power, and their hirelings. History has shown 
again and again that where the sister nations meet 
in knowledge, friendship always follows. Unfor- 
tunately, Ireland was either unknown, or known only 
as painted by the tongue of calumny, to the great 
body of the English nation. This in great measure 
is true even to-day. 

We set forth the story of her martyrdom, not to 
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MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

perpetuate strife (God forbid!); but to show the 
grandeur of the national spirit of faith that carried 
Ireland triumphant over all, and the splendid spirit 
of forgiveness — Christlike because copied from 
Christ — that she has ever shown towards those 
who smote her so cruelly. Poor Ireland, prostrate 
in agony, blinded and bleeding from the lash, has 
again and again raised her weary head, and given 
her hand in friendship when the scourger's heart 
seemed softened towards her, imitating her cross- 
nailed Leader, and giving to the world a noble ex- 
ample of sublime Christian charity, that lifted her 
above all worldly wisdom. 

Ireland for a thousand years had been a beacon 
of the faith to Europe and a center of civilization 
and culture, driving back the darkness of paganism 
from the nations. But heresy smote where pagan- 
ism failed, and wave on wave of fanatical hate rolled 
across the land in determined endeavor to quench 
that light. For be it always remembered that ad- 
herence to the ancient faith was the primary cause 
of Ireland's being broken on the wheel. The priest 
was described as a beast to be extirpated, and was 
classified with the wolf. A lord lieutenant declared 
that " if the priests had not been in Ireland the 
troubles would not have arisen." In 1641 both 
Houses of Parliament in England declared that they 
would never give their consent to any toleration of 
the Catholic religion in Ireland, or in any part of 
his majesty's dominions. Every church was de- 
stroyed, every altar desecrated, every tabernacle 

[123] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

broken, in vain endeavor to tear the Faith from 
the heart of the nation. To be a Catholic was to 
be a traitor and a rebel. All that was needed to 
escape this stigma was to relinquish the Faith, and 
" nothing more would be required of them." This 
Ireland would not do. When she had to choose be- 
tween following God and His Church and being 
recreant to Him, Ireland — true to her traditions — 
never hesitated. She entered unflinchingly upon her 
long-drawn agony, an agony that began with the 
Tudors of the Reformation, steadily increased in 
horror until the summit of Calvary was reached in 
the eighteenth century, and Ireland was nailed to 
the cross of the penal laws. 

It is sad reading, for it tells of a deliberate at- 
tempt to annihilate a nation for no crime but the 
desire to worship God. 

Emissaries of the Tudors traversed the land, 
burning and slaying. Corn and cattle, the support 
of the people, were seized, and nothing left but 
" ashes and carcasses." The soil was taken by a 
horde of hungry adventurers, and the nation, de- 
spoiled of food and homes and land, stood help- 
lessly starving on the highway. The people saw 
their houses and lands occupied by strangers, who 
had thrown them out because they were Irish and 
Catholic. One Sir W. Cole reports that " we 
starved and famished 7,000 of the vulgar sort, 
whose goods were seized on by my regiment." In 
Elizabeth's time the sword was not sheathed until 
fertile Munster was left a wilderness, where a few 

[124] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

shadows of men crawled feebly through the woods, 
striving to escape from the oppressor, who 
slaughtered all even to the cradled babe, and gloried 
in the fact that he " strangled the cubs " of the Irish 
wherever he found them. 

But the nation sank to deeper depths of woe 
under the Stuarts and Cromwell. Men look back 
in horror to the burning of Rome by Nero, who sang 
and played in the glare of the flames: the burning of 
Rome was but a spark beside the Cromwellian blaze 
that left Ireland a blackened waste, a blaze lit by 
those who sang psalms as they burnt and impaled. 

Through the smoking ruins the survivors of the 
people were driven before the thrusting steel, held 
by marauders who knew neither justice nor mercy, 
and who, amid scenes of horror almost without 
parallel, ceased not to harass them even when, 
starving and dying, they went streaming through 
the boulder wastes of Connaught. 

The nation was proscribed, and the Catholic 
nobility and gentry were declared " incapable of 
pardon, of life, or estate," and were banished to 
Connaught, then a waste so ravaged that many 
chose death or transportation sooner than face its 
rigors. Death was the penalty decreed for the 
Catholic found east of the Shannon. Complete 
annihilation seemed to be the end aimed at, and it 
would have been attained but that the manhood 
of many of the officers and soldiers revolted against 
their instructions, and they secretly showed mercy 
to the outcasts. 

[■25] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Whole towns, cleared of inhabitants, became deso- 
late; farms became wastes. The fine port of Gal- 
way fell into ruin when the Irish were swept beyond 
its walls, and their houses were offered to Liver- 
pool merchants. Parliament paid its debts by giv- 
ing streets of empty houses to its creditors. For 
instance, it freed itself of its obligation to a Cap- 
tain Arthur by giving him 200 houses in Wexford. 

Fire, sword, and famine killed swiftly, but not 
swiftly enough for the destroyers. Ireland was to 
know yet another horror. It seems incredible to- 
day, but none the less it is too true, that that human 
monster, the slave trader, was called in to hasten 
the death of the nation. The horror that prowled 
in the darkness of the jungles of Africa was let 
loose upon defenseless Ireland. Fair maidens and 
youths were seized, carried shrieking to slave ships, 
and sold to West Indian planters to wear out their 
lives as slaves under the lash of the plantation 
overseer. For thirty-three years these ghouls took 
their toll of Irish lives — a toll that is variously 
estimated at from 20,000 to 100,000. 

But all efforts, even the bloodiest, were vain. 
The oppressor learned that to attempt to annihilate 
a nation is to attempt the impossible. Ireland lived 
and Ireland grew, upheld by her Catholic spirit. 
As strength came back to her sorely stricken body, 
animated by her unconquered Catholic soul, she 
dauntlessly staggered back to where the stranger 
held her homes, heedless of the death that still 
menaced her. Across the Shannon, with its edging 

[126] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

of bayonets and high-swung gallows noose, the 
people came creeping, starving in the morasses, hid- 
ing in the woods, back across the lands from which 
they had been driven. With indomitable courage 
they waited through the years, until their oppres- 
sors were forced to acknowledge their presence 
and permitted them to exist, though on the barest 
sufferance. In the eyes of the law they had no 
existence. In 1759 a Catholic was told by a judge 
on the bench that " the laws do not presume a 
Papist to exist in the kingdom, nor can they breathe 
without the connivance of the Government." If 
such a judge had controlled the atmosphere, Ireland 
would have been in danger of national asphyxiation. 
A Parliament was placed in the country, but no 
Catholic could sit in it, and of it Lecky tells us — 
" few legislative bodies ever exhibited a more savage 
intolerance than the Irish Parliament in the first 
quarter of the eighteenth century." It passed meas- 
ures designed to leave the Irish nothing but their 
eyes to weep with. Catholics were excluded from 
government, from all professions, from the army 
and navy, from all civil offices. They had no rights 
of inheritance, no schools, no churches. In the ef- 
fort to keep them in a state of perpetual serfdom, 
it was decreed that they could not legally possess 
property greater in value than a few pounds. Un- 
der this law, for example, if a Protestant met a 
Catholic riding a horse worth more than £5, he could 
tender him £5, and there and then seize the horse 
as his own. The law pursued the poor Catholic 

[127] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

even after death, and forbade him burial in conse- 
crated ground. 

Until the Emancipation Act of 1829, no Catholic 
took part in the government of Ireland. The aim 
of the Parliament was to prevent " the growth of 
Popery," and to this end its penal code was shaped. 
Of this Edmund Burke says : 

" The code against the Catholics was a machine 
of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted 
for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation 
of a people, and the abasement in them of human 
nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted 
ingenuity of man." 

All industry was crushed, even the very fisheries, 
and a state of constant starvation resulted. The 
straits to which the people were reduced may be 
judged from the fact that every week " the cattle 
were bled, and their blood boiled with sorrel gave 
the poor a miserable sustenance." 

Having thus reduced them, one of the oppressors 
can ask " whether there be upon earth any Christian 
or civilized people so beggarly wretched and desti- 
tute as the common Irish." 

The same gentleman, the Protestant bishop, 
Berkeley, advised that " all able-bodied vagrants 
should be compelled to work in public and in 
chains." And this, after creating a nation of home- 
less wanderers ! 

Famine followed the blaze of the spoiler's torch, 
[128] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

and pestilence followed famine. Ireland's cup of 
sorrow overflowed. Five-sixths of the people 
perished. It was a land of silence and of death. 
Wolves prowled along the deserted roads, tearing 
unburied bodies. 

As if the destroying angel had visited it, the na- 
tion lay at its last gasp. The roads were littered 
with the dead, the dying lay by the cold hearth. 

An English member of Parliament, speaking in 
the House of Commons, said: 

"The priest and the pauper famishing together: 
no inquests, no rites, no record even; the high road 
a charnel house, the land a chaos; a ruined pro- 
prietary, a panic-stricken tenantry; the soil unfilled, 
the work-house a pest; death, desolation, and de- 
spair reigning through the land." 

Criticizing the neglect of those in power, the 
Protestant minister, Sydney Smith, uses these 
scathing words : 

" Profligacy in taking office is so extreme that we 
have no doubt public men may be found who for 
half a century would postpone all remedies for a 
pestilence if the preservation of their places de- 
pended upon the propagation of the virus." 

Side by side with this campaign of deliberate 
physical starvation, determined efforts were con- 
stantly made to reduce Ireland to a state of spiritual 
starvation. To this end the priests had been killed, 
the churches destroyed, and heresy set up in their 
place. Tithes were laid upon the country to support 

[129] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

heresy, and wrung by force from the helpless poor. 
A powerful host of wealthy proselytizers harassed 
and threatened the people. They invaded the 
cabins of the starving, tempting them with an 
abundance of well-cooked food as the price of apos- 
tasy. But Ireland recoiled in even greater horror 
from these vampires, whose prey was souls, than she 
did from the slave traders - who trafficked in the 
bodies of her people. 

Through all this horror of bloodshed and op- 
pression, one main end was aimed at — the extirpa- 
tion of the Catholic Faith. This is evident from 
their words and laws as we have already seen, and is 
most clearly shown in the conduct of the oppressors 
towards the sacred ministers of our religion. 
Bishops and priests were hunted and killed at sight 
by wandering bands of soldiers. Paid spies 
swarmed over the land, hunting and harrying priests. 
Torture was their common fate when caught. The 
head of a bishop earned a reward of £50, of a 
priest £30, of a teacher £10. When forces sur- 
rendered on terms, priests were always excepted, 
and death was the penalty that awaited them. One 
proclamation ran: 

" And for the Jesuits, priests, friars, monks, and 
nuns, £20 will be given to any that can bring cer- 
tain intelligence where any of them are. And who- 
soever doth harbor or conceal any one of them is to 
forfeit life and estate." 

Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scat- 
tered, was the motto of the oppressor; but the most 

[130] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

pitiless striking, with armies as the hammer, and 
torture and death as the anvil, not only proved 
powerless to separate the shepherds from their 
flocks, but it bound them together more closely. 
This martyrdom joined priests and people in an in- 
dissoluble union, closer even than that which binds 
earthly parent and child. 

The priests did their duty in the face of death. 
In all manner of disguises they pressed through 
deadly dangers, succoring their loved people. 
Young Levites stole across to Europe, and entered 
the " Irish Colleges " that were founded by nations 
that felt for Ireland in her extremity. At Louvain, 
Salamanca, Seville, Lisbon, Paris, and Rome these 
colleges stood, and from them, with the oil of or- 
dination fresh upon their hands, patriotic priests 
came back to labor in the gloom of the mountain 
cave, and under the shadow of the hedge, willingly 
facing martyrdom that Ireland might keep true. 
They met death with the laugh of a twofold love on 
their lips, love of Christ and love of Ireland. 

Thus it was that, despite the fact that for over 
two hundred years the Sacrifice of the Mass — the 
center of Christianity — had been forbidden by law 
in Ireland, the Holy Sacrifice never ceased, and was 
offered over the whole of the land. It was cele- 
brated in lowly cabin, on the granite Mass Rock, on 
fallen tree-trunk, and in dark Mass cave, in the 
presence of multitudes who knew that detection 
meant death. 

It was the possession of the divine strength of the 
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THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Mass and Communion that enabled the nation to 
live through those awful centuries, and be as fear- 
lessly Catholic at the end of them as she was in the 
days of St. Patrick. Strengthened by the Divine 
Presence, the Irish nation emerged from the fearful 
ordeal even more strong and determined and 
Catholic than it was when the storm first broke. 
God fought on their side, and like another Chosen 
People, strong in His Presence, His tabernacle as 
their Ark of the Covenant, His Church as their 
Pillar of Fire, they feared no enemy. The faster 
the blood of the martyrs flowed, the stronger grew 
the Church. 

In the year 1672, when Cromwell had wreaked 
his will, the Catholics numbered only 800,000, out 
of the total population of 1,100,000. Bitter perse- 
cution was carried on for centuries; and at their 
close, the Church that men thought they had beaten 
flat to the earth in utter destruction had grown to 
a mighty edifice, towering over all, joining Ireland 
to heaven, and impervious to all assaults. In the 
year 1834 the Irish nation numbered 7,943,840 
souls, of whom the magnificent number 6,427,718 
were Catholic ! 

Such a marvelous increase was truly supernatural, 
for everything from a natural point of view was 
against it. The Catholics had to live under iniq- 
uitous laws, whose purpose was to pauperize, de- 
grade, and destroy them. Of those 6,000,000 
people, the vast majority, nearly 5,000,000, lived 
in houses of one room each, and could be evicted 

[132] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

at any moment; " pay the rent " was the only alter- 
native to being flung on the road. 

Then, little more than half a century ago, despite 
the fact that food was plentiful, famine fell upon 
the land, and, as we have seen, Ireland became a 
poorhouse and a cemetery. One-sixth of the 
6,000,000 perished, and the Church was again re- 
duced to her numbers of Cromwellian days. 

Years passed, and the enemies of the Church, in- 
creasing and multiplying, began to dispute the 
right of the Catholic to hold that his was the re- 
ligion of the land. In 1861 the population of Ire- 
land was 5,774,143, and the adherence of the 
tithe-supported Protestant religion, the so-called 
" Church of Ireland," called for a census to prove 
that they were equal in number to those of the true 
Faith. The census was taken, and again heresy 
'shrank back in bewilderment, for it was another 
glorious triumph for the Church. From the hand- 
ful of the faithful spared by the famine, our Church 
had grown through tears and poverty and repres- 
sion, until it numbered 4,490,583 faithful followers. 

When will the oppressors of Catholic Ireland 
learn wisdom from the truths of history? The shafts 
of persecution fall powerless before such a dauntless 
people. Firm in their Faith, they walked through 
the gates of death, for they saw the God whom they 
loved smiling a welcome to them. Through all 
those dark days, the soul of Ireland was untouched 
and untroubled, the heart of Ireland beat stead- 
fastly, and the honor of Ireland was untarnished. 

[133] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Her valleys rang with the moan of the stricken 
ones, her hill-sides blazed and smoked at the touch 
of the torch of the destroyer; but the light of faith 
shone over all. With magnificent trust in God, they 
patiently and strongly held their way along the path 
of His commands. Their trials but made for 
national manhood, for heroic constancy, a passionate 
love of liberty, and enduring sympathy with the 
oppressed. The tree of Irish faith, washed by the 
blood and watered by the tears of the nation, 
flourished despite torture and death, and spread its 
branches, until to-day almost every nation on earth 
finds shelter and sustenance beneath it. 

In the history of other nations, special periods 
are pointed to with pride, as ages of faith, because 
of the warmth of the devotion shown in those 
periods towards God. Ireland knows no such 
periods, for every age with her is an age of faith, 
faith warm and full-hearted. 

The Irish ever lived in the clear air of the moun- 
tain of faith, high above the clouds of doubt and 
despair, and have always looked down with horror 
and pity at the morass of heresy through which their 
enemies floundered. Men had striven to reduce the 
nation to barbarism, but Ireland was saved by her 
faith, for a nation that holds fast to God can never 
fall, nor cease to follow high ideals. The mind of 
the Irishman, firmly fixed on the glorious ideals of 
the Catholic Faith, found in these a support that 
enabled him to ride triumphant over the billows of 
fanatic frenzy that in vain tried to submerge him. 

[134] 



MARTYRDOM OF IRELAND 

More, guided by those ideals, he was enabled to 
look upon all with eyes of faith, and kept in his 
heart in a high degree the supernatural spirit of 
Christian forgiveness. 

These ideals kept the moral strength of the na- 
tion, the true test of national life, unimpaired, ready 
to leap into action when opportunity offered. It is 
this moral strength of the national character that 
keeps the Irish people moving steadily across an 
ocean of sorrow, battling against tides and tempests 
that seem to overwhelm, rudely buffeted and bleed- 
ing, but pressing fearlessly on, ever conscious of 
their route and destination, confidently conquering 
all by the magnificent strength of their faith. 
Stronger than the Israelites of old, who, when 
trouble that seemed insurmountable surged round 
them, hung up their harps in despair, the Irish in 
adversity but sound their harps more strongly, and 
go forward singing songs of Sion. 

For them, the curving blue over Ireland is but 
a thin veil, behind which dwell their martyred dead: 
a veil through which Ireland triumphant looks in 
love and pride upon Ireland faithful; a veil that 
dims not the memories and voices and glories that 
crown Ireland with an immortal halo : a veil that 
they pierce with the eyes of vivid faith, and with 
clear vision see Him whom they have always trusted, 
and whom they have always followed unfalteringly. 
For the strength of Ireland is the drinking of the 
chalice of Christ, and the glory of Ireland is the 
carrying of the cross of Christ. 

[135] 



CHAPTER XIII 

IRISH IDEALS 

' I '"HE highest ideal to which man may aspire is 
■*■ the perfect performance of duty. This in- 
cludes his duty to God and his duty to humanity, 
and presupposes a thorough knowledge of his des- 
tiny. But it is human to go astray, and the his- 
tory of nations is in the main a history of deserted 
and buried ideals. The pursuit of high ideals fructi- 
fies in noble thoughts and deeds; the abandonment 
of them means a falling to a lower plane. 

The tale of the centuries proves this, and shows 
that a nation cannot rise to greatness from the grave 
of buried ideals. The march of man across time is 
strewn with the bones of dead and forgotten na- 
tions, who fell from grandeur to annihilation be- 
cause, relinquishing ideals that would have led them 
to the footstool of the Creator, they turned and 
followed those that did not rise above the earth. 
Their history shows that a nation that barters its 
soul for material ideals is a nation that is doomed. 
The march of nations is not a slow struggle up- 
wards from barbarism to high ideals, as some would 
have us believe; but, too often, is a blinded descent 
from honor and greatness to barbarism, because of 
lost ideals. It is not evolution from the mythical 

[136] 



IRISH IDEALS 

" caveman " upwards, but a succession of degrading 
fallings from the high estate in which man was 
placed by God. With feet clogged by the clay of 
earth, and eyes blinded by the mists of earth, as 
those without compass or helm, nations have blun- 
dered aimlessly down to nothingness. 

As the student of the history of mankind stands 
amazed at the almost cyclic regularity of the recur- 
rence of these falls, he cannot but be struck by one 
notable and almost unique exception to what seems 
a universal law. That exception is Ireland. As he 
unrolls the pages of the centuries, pages that tell 
of the passing of empires and the shattering of 
civilization, of the discovery of new worlds, of new 
languages, of new beliefs, of dark epochs when the 
tide of ignorance flowed full and fast and barbarism 
threatened to rule supreme, he sees that Ireland has 
ever held a level course, unmoved and confident in 
every crisis. While others fall in helpless ruin, he 
sees that nation for 1,400 years steadily progressing 
and never declining. 

The secret of her splendid strength is to be found 
in her heroic devotion to the ideals given to her by 
St. Patrick, and a comprehension of these is essential 
for him who would read aright her history. In 
giving Ireland the Catholic faith, St. Patrick gave 
her the perfect way through which to attain these 
ideals. 

Nations curved away from the straight path of 
these high ideals and entangled themselves in path- 
less wastes and morasses, dark beneath the heavy 

[i37] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

clouds of doubt and unbelief, while Ireland steadily 
followed the straight path lit by the light of the sun 
of all truth. 

Nations wandered blindly, and unceasingly pro- 
claimed that their aimless circlings and uneasy 
spiralings meant progress, while materially and 
morally they meant only incessant change of direc- 
tion. But Ireland kept valorously to the heights 
and moved steadily and securely forward. Appre- 
ciating the high ideals that contained a truer test of 
valor and manhood than any she had hitherto known 
and gave her a field of conquest more noble than 
aught else on earth, despite the vicissitudes of four- 
teen centuries, she has held firmly to the faith that 
gives form to those ideals. 

Persecution struck long and hard at her in an 
endeavor to compel Ireland to surrender her ideals, 
but in vain. We have seen in her martyrdom how 
for ages wave after wave of oppression rolled across 
her path, but did not stay her. Poverty and 
pestilence dogged her steps and almost annihilated 
her children, but she steadily pushed beyond them. 
The natural effect of grinding poverty is to degrade 
and brutalize, and of persistent pain is to weaken, 
and to this end they were ruthlessly used against 
her by her enemies. Grinding poverty and per- 
sistent pain were hers for centuries, and they but 
uplifted and strengthened her, for the spiritual 
strength that is hers because of her fidelity to her 
ideal lifts her above time and its circumstances and 

[138] 



IRISH IDEALS 

anchors her to eternity. Through all oppression, 
the soul of Ireland looked upwards unmoved, her 
honor untarnished and her heart faithful. 

A study of this fact caused the English Protestant 
statesman, Mr. Birrell, to utter these words: 

" After studying Ireland for many years, the 
main feeling left in my mind is how, after all the 
fighting and revolution and confiscation and menace, 
after all the penal laws and famines and tithe wars 
and coercion acts, after the destruction of native 
industries and the yearly drain on the population 
by emigration, there are still in Ireland four and a 
half millions of people, and the majority of them still 
adhere to their old religion. Such tenacity of faith 
is, I believe, unexampled in the history of the whole 
world. From the time of Elizabeth almost down 
to the time of Victoria to be a Catholic in Ireland 
was to be an outcast. They (the Catholics) were 
robbed of their lands; they were given their choice 
between ' hell and Connacht ' ; they were ousted 
from portions of Ulster in favor of Scotchmen, and 
they were killed or banished whenever opportunity 
offered. But they were neither annihilated nor con- 
verted; and yet from the time of Elizabeth down- 
ward to our own day, they enjoyed all the blessings 
of the Protestant Establishment. They had four 
Protestant archbishops, between twenty and thirty 
bishops, I do not know how many deans and a pa- 
rochial clergy, all supported by tithes wrung out of 
wretched tenants, none of whom ever entered the 

[139] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

place of worship to which they were compelled to 
contribute." 

The sole and complete explanation of that which 
mystified Mr. Birrell is that it is the natural sequence 
of Ireland's heroic constancy to her ideals and to 
her faith, from which they spring. The center of 
Irish life is in the next world, and to it she ever looks. 
As her poet De Vere sings: 

" Thy song was pure, thy heart was high, 
Thy genius through its strength was chaste." 

Therefore is it that she resolutely refuses to be 
drawn to lower levels. A Lutheran archbishop un- 
consciously gives testimony to this trait of Irish char- 
acter thus : 

" The common people of this isle are more zealous 
in their blindness than the saints and martyrs were 
in the truth at the beginning of the Gospel." 

He could not in his " blindness " see that it was 
the same zeal for the same truth and for the same 
Gospel. 

The poorest not only believed but understood. 
Their deep religious convictions, the strongest of all 
feelings, gave invincible strength. They were de- 
prived of their leaders, their churches, their teach- 
ers, their schools, their lands, their houses, their 
language; and yet the nation swung forward as one 
man, bound together and upheld by the golden chain 
of religion. The light of faith shone in water- 
logged cell and gloomy dungeon, and filled them with 

[140] 



IRISH IDEALS 

glory; it took the pain from bleeding feet and 
strengthened weary hearts; it filled anguished eyes 
with the vision of Christ and nerved broken bodies 
to creep up Calvary. 

It gave to the nation a language and literature 
of remarkable purity. The grossness that stains 
other tongues and writings has no place in the chaste 
speech and writings of the Gael. The Gaelic lan- 
guage is Catholic in its very essence. Some years 
ago a Protestant missionary college, founded in Ire- 
land to proselytize the people, began to teach the 
Gaelic language to its students that they might 
evangelize the Gaelic speakers of the nation. As a 
result, so many of the embryo ministers became 
Catholics that the study of the language was sum- 
marily stopped. 

Irish writers, conscious of a loving God looking 
interestedly down from the battlements of Heaven, 
poured out their thoughts in phrasings that owed 
their beauty to the prism of faith through which 
they passed, and made the language a sanctuary 
wherein are enshrined rare jewels of thoughts. 
Read for example the glorious Song of Praise of 
Tara: 

" At Tara to-day may the strength of God pilot me, 
May the power of God preserve me, 
May the eye of God view me, may the ear of God hear 

me, 
May the word of God make me eloquent, 
May the hand of God protect me, may the way of God 
direct me, 

[141] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

May the shield of God defend me. 
Christ be with me, Christ before me, 
Christ be after me, Christ be in me, 
Christ be under me, Christ be over me, 
Christ at my right, Christ at my left, 
Christ in the heart of each I speak to, 
Christ in the mouth of each who speaks to me, 
Christ in each eye which sees me, 
Christ in each ear which hears me." 

These glowing words mirror the minds of a people 
whose every sense and every thought are turned to 
the fulfillment of their ideal. 

The effect of this on the national character can 
scarcely be estimated. Close-linked with the 
Author of all virtue, the practice of heroic virtue 
became common in the land. Parents in thousands 
willingly gave their beloved children to the service 
of God; the rich poured out their goods in the same 
service, and their love flowed out upon their neigh- 
bors. Their steady adherence to these ideals gave 
such stability of thought and correctness of action 
to the nation that it was saved from the effects of 
the wild theories that under the name of progress 
injured other nations. 

And marvelous as the effects of Irish ideals have 
been upon the spiritual life of the people, they are 
none the less potent where material things are con- 
cerned. Carefully keeping the things of earth in 
proper perspective, the Irish devoted themselves to 
them, and became a nation of famous leaders of 
men, preeminent in science, art, and industry. 

[142] 



IRISH IDEALS 

The monasteries sanctified labor, and were bul- 
warks of justice and morality and brotherly love. 
With them the foundation of greatness was sanctity. 
Each had its scriptorium for writers, its halls where 
science and learning were taught and its workshops 
for trades and arts. Each was " a hive of industry, 
a home of learning, and an abode of sanctity," 

Industry changed the land into a smiling paradise, 
for all men were laborers with hand as well as brain. 

As artificers, they remain unequalled. Miss 
Stokes, speaking of the Ardagh chalice, one of the 
few pieces of Irish workmanship that have escaped 
the destroyers, says : 

" The Ardagh chalice shows complete mastery 
in the arts of tempering, stamping, engraving, and 
exquisite skill in design and execution." 

Professor Westwood of Oxford holds that at a 
time when the fine arts were almost unknown on 
the Continent, from the fifth to the end of the 
eighth century, the art of illumination had attained 
a perfection in Ireland that was almost marvelous, 
and which in after ages was taught to the Continent 
by Irish monks. 

And it was on the Sacred Scriptures that they 
exercised their art — thus becoming light-bearers 
through the darkness of Europe, and preservers of 
the Word of God, perpetuators of the high ideal by 
which they were what they were. 

The same high authority, speaking of the Book 
of Kells, says: 

[143] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

" It must have been penned by the hands of 
angels: the border of the pages in Irish manuscripts 
seems powdered with crushed jewels. It is the most 
astonishing book of the four Gospels that exists in 
the world. How men could have eyes and tools to 
work out such designs, I am sure I, with all the skill 
and knowledge in such kind of work that I have 
been exercising for the last fifty years, cannot con- 
ceive." 

A modern artist worked for six months striving 
to reproduce one letter of this artistic marvel from 
the pen of St. Columba, and finally gave up the at- 
tempt in despair. 

Their love of learning was phenomenal. In the 
earliest ages great privileges were granted to learned 
men. Professor Curry on this point tells us: 

" The highest generic name for a learned man 
was ' ollamb.' Each of these was allowed a stand- 
ing income of twenty cows and their grasses, food 
for himself and twenty-four attendants, two hounds 
and six horses. But to reach that degree, he had 
to prove himself worthy by purity of learning, purity 
of speech, and purity of action." 

How well for the world would it be if the same 
credentials were demanded to-day! 

And this intense love and appreciation of learning 
has never been lost, but has flourished in spite of 
the most tremendous opposition. The clouds of 
war rolled across the land, and ruthless invaders de- 
stroyed both monasteries and churches. When the 

[144] 



IRISH IDEALS 

invader was routed and the Irish stood triumphant 
behind their kind, their first care was the restora- 
tion of the ruined shrines of knowledge and wisdom. 
For example, scarce had King Brian Boru van- 
quished the Danes than he took measures to restore 
the schools and monasteries, and to guard the peo- 
ple from falling into ignorance. Of him we read 
in a contemporary writer: 

" He sent professors to teach wisdom and knowl- 
edge and to buy books beyond the seas, because 
their writings and their books in every church and 
in every sanctuary where they were plundered and 
thrown into the sea by the plunderers from the 
beginning to the end, and Brian himself gave the 
price of learning and the price of books to every 
one separately who went on this service." 

The spirit of such leaders has ever lived in the 
nation. It was this that upheld the Irish in the 
penal days when it was transportation for a teacher 
if captured; when the house in which Irish manu- 
scripts were found was burned to the ground in 
punishment; when the nation crept to the ditches 
and gained knowledge under the leafy roof of the 
hedge school sooner than touch the poisoned bowl 
of heresy. 

Ireland did not scale the heights in solitary selfish- 
ness. She went across the earth "doing good"; 
but it would lead us too far to trace in detail the 
effects of Irish ideals upon the other nations of the 
world. Let one instance suffice. Speaking of the 

[145] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

influence of the Irish people upon the American na- 
tion, the famous jurisconsult, Mr. Taft, formerly 
President of the United States, says: 

" There has been an easy amalgamation of the 
Irish with our American life. They have added 
much to the composite American, made from various 
European stocks. They have softened the Ameri- 
can wit. They have added to American tenderness. 
They have increased the spirit of good fellowship, 
added to our social graces, increased our poetical 
imagination, made us more optimistic, and added to 
our sunny philosophy. Socialism and anarchy have 
found no lodgment among Irishmen. They believe 
in institutions of modern society. They believe in 
upholding our national and our State Governments. 
They are not full of diatribes against the existing 
order. They struggle for equality of opportunity, 
and recognize the value of liberty ordered by law. 
They are not seeking to invent a new society and 
turn the present one topsy-turvy. They are co- 
operating with the good fortune, the prosperity and 
the happiness that is possible under our Govern- 
ment. They are grateful for all this, they value it, 
and they will fight to preserve it." 

" They are grateful for all this, they value it, 
and they will fight to preserve it!" Of course 
they will. They have valued and fought for these 
rights for centuries. They are but the fructification 
of their ideals, and they bravely sought this in 
foreign lands when it was denied them at home. 

[146] 



IRISH IDEALS 

Those who try to measure the progress of this 
people by earthly standards find qualities as immeas- 
urable as the fourth dimension, and actions that 
nullify ordinary human wisdom, for they square 
only with the infinite. 

Who will dare blame for folly this act of a young 
Irish wife? With her husband and two children 
she had gone to Australia and settled on the land. 
They failed badly, owing to dry seasons, and found 
themselves in Melbourne with only thirty shillings 
in the world. They searched for employment in 
vain. Their money went until they had but six 
shillings left. Taking this, the wife entered one of 
the city churches, and dropped it into a box marked 
" For the Poor," at the feet of a statue of St. 
Anthony. " There, St. Anthony," she cried, " there 
is all that we have in the world. Ask God to get 
work for us! " Permanent work came for both al- 
most immediately. The worldly wise may doubt 
and speak of coincidence, but ther-e is no doubt 
in the mind of that Irish wife as she daily sends 
warm prayers of thanksgiving to the Giver of the 
work. 

But when all is said, the supreme test of life is 
death. We are given life to learn how to die, and 
the manner of our dying is the measure of our suc- 
cess in living. He who turns from the deathbeds 
of those whose ideals made them poison-drinking, 
vein-opening suicides, and contemplates the death- 
beds of the Irish, finds that death with them is but 
the stepping-stone to final triumph. 

[147] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Come with me to the little cabin high on a Con- 
nemara hill-side. A message has come in haste to 
tell of a man lying at the point of death within. 

Everything about the cabin speaks of the deepest 
poverty. The green turf, unbroken by spade or 
mattock, runs close up to the base of the mold- 
stained walls; the roof-tree sags under a weight of 
sodden thatch, covered thickly with thick bosses of 
green moss that make the whole seem but a swelling 
of the turf-covered mountain-side. 

The wailing of children and the slow moan of a 
woman sound from within. As we bend under the 
low door to enter, we see kneeling on the clay floor 
a woman and five children. She is broken with 
grief, and her children are clinging convulsively to 
her. 

At the left, on a low bed, is the dying father, gasp- 
ing out the last moments of his life, parched with a 
fever that sprang from starvation. As soon as he 
sees us, the lines of pain fade from his wasted face, 
and he looks eagerly and confidently up, watching 
our every movement. Death is no mystery to him, 
for he has shaped his whole life to be ready for it. 
He understands everything — the Visitor who rests 
on the corporal, the silver phial of holy oil, the 
stole, the lighted candles. Quietly he makes his 
confession, reverently he receives his God in Viati- 
cum, and communes in silent adoration with Him 
whose Presence makes the lowly cabin a sacred tab- 
ernacle. Then, in quiet confidence he brings his 
thoughts back to earth. Slowly and painfully he 

[148] 



IRISH IDEAUS 

turns his wasted body until, lying on his side, he 
looks with eyes filled with love down at the sobbing 
wife who has been pouring her heart out to Christ 
as He rested on the little table, pleading with Him 
not to take her husband and leave her alone. 

" Catherine," in weak tones calls the dying man, 
and at the word she kneels upright, clasping her 
hands to her breast as if to check the tide of sorrow, 
and looks at him with tear-dimmed eyes. 

" Catherine," the dying voice repeats, dropping 
the words syllable by syllable, slow at the touch of 
death, " don't — cry ; sure — haven't — we — got 

— the — Man — above; and — when — I — see 

— Him — I'll — tell — Him. — about — you — 
and — the — children." 

He lay quietly back and began to pray again, and 
thus he died, and went to meet " the Man above," 
as is the beautifully familiar, reverent phrase of the 
people. 

That man spent his life working like a slave on 
the bleak mountain wastes, often knee-deep in water 
all day. His life was a perpetual fight with black 
poverty — poverty that with its semi-starvation 
brought him to an early grave. He died, leaving a 
wife and five children without a morsel of food in 
the house, and yet with a heart full of faith and 
confidence he left all to the care of Christ. 

All the adversity against which he had struggled 
through the slow years was no more than the passing 
sea mist that clung for a moment to the cliff be- 
fore his cabin and vanished. He measured all and 

[149] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

understood all by his faith, and died a veritable con- 
queror. 

He measured his poverty against the poverty of 
the cave of Bethlehem, his humiliations against those 
of the Cross-carrier, his years of life against eter- 
nity, and measuring, laughingly followed his Leader, 
whom he saw ever before him, calling him onward 
and upward. 

The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost have room to 
operate in such sterling souls, and on such souls 
does Ireland's greatness rest. 

The path of their ideal is the path of the seven 
sacraments, and beside it flows the perennial foun- 
tain of living water. Faithfully traversing this 
path, the Irish people, conquerors in life and con- 
querors in death, have lifted Ireland triumphant to 
the heights of Heaven. 



[150] 



CHAPTER XIV 

IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

r I "HE Catholic Church is the home of joyous 
**■ laughter. Her Founder came to earth an- 
nouncing " tidings of great joy," a great joy based 
on hope and love that has ever since been one of the 
characteristic notes of the Church. As an Irish 
priest pleasantly puts it: " The true Church is dis- 
tinctly joyous in its sacraments, doctrines, and devo- 
tions, and in the number of its children who have 
been eminent for joyousness in all ages." 

Religion properly understood and practiced is a 
spring of unending joyousness, welling in the heart 
and independent of the mutable things of time. St. 
Lawrence on his gridiron, Sir Thomas More laying 
his head on the block, died joking, because of this 

joy- 

For from this joy, incessantly bubbling up in the 
Catholic heart from the well of faith, flows the 
kindly stream of humor that mellows all things hu- 
man. Faith and humor go together. True at 
times we find narrow souls who look askance at 
humor, as if, forsooth, if religiously weighed, it 
would be found out of harmony with piety. They 
forget that the Sacred Scriptures tell us that God 
made the dragon " that He might laugh at him." 
Faith gives a strong full tide of humor that remains 

[i5i] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

always with a man, changing like the tides, but ever 
present. 

But humor that springs from faith can be under- 
stood only by him who possesses the faith. He who 
passes the measuring rod of eternity over human 
things must develop a broad kindliness of outlook 
that finds expression in steady and thorough enjoy- 
ment. " Be of good cheer," Christ commanded His 
followers, and this enjoyment is the resultant of the 
possession of the peace of God. 

When man is in harmony with the infinite, all 
things sing joyously to him of their Creator, and 
he holds the key that unlocks all barriers to progress 
and success. But the man who lives only for 
worldly pleasures misses the very purpose of life and 
cannot know true joyousness. He searches for joy 
where there is no joy, in a spinning world where " to 
think is to be full of sorrows and leaden-eyed des- 
pairs "; a world where the flash of teeth passes for 
laughter while sorrow bites at the heart; a world 
where there is no finality; a world oppressed by the 
consciousness of the presence of the twin shadows, 
Aveakness and death. 

Nor is the unbeliever in better plight than the 
sensual worldling, because for him life is meaning- 
less. " I find," said Huxley, the agnostic, " my 
dislike to the thought of extinction increasing as I 
get older and nearer the goal. It flashes across me 
at all sorts of times with a sort of horror. I had 
rather be in hell a good deal." Herbert Spencer 
was tortured by similar misgivings. 

[152] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

How different are such lives from the lives of 
those who hear and understand the message of the 
first Christmas: "Behold, I bring you tidings of 
a great joy." We see the plenitude of the effects 
of this message when we study the lives of those 
who know Christ best — His saints. The spirit of 
the saints sings always, despite trial and external 
sorrow. They caught the laughter of the universe 
and increased its chorus. This is beautifully shown 
in these words of Father Boylan, S. J. : 

" Francis of Assisi was the great type of mediaeval 
sanctity; his heart-easing laughing rippled round the 
world. His deep-seated gayety, caught by innumer- 
able sons and followers, has traced out a luminous 
track through the sorrows of the earth. 

" St. Teresa, the foundress of the Carmelite re- 
form, was an austere saint, if ever there was one, 
and she carried to old age a light and infectious 
joyousness which she has left as a legacy to her 
children. Throughout the world to-day in the stern 
cloisters of Carmel, one may hear falling from the 
lips of aged religious, tottering with wide-open eyes 
to the grave, a light-hearted laughter which suggests 
the exuberance of perpetual youth. The saints are 
always young. For centuries men have dreamed of 
the elixir of perpetual youth, and at last have come 
to the conclusion that it is only a pleasant dream. 
But it is no dream. It is a reality, and Christ offers 
it to the world : ' He that drinks of the living water 
which I shall give him shall not thirst forever.' " 

[153] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

This fullness of joy is theirs because of their deep 
comprehension of Christ. Laughter rings through 
every cloister in the world. To such souls " God's 
stripes are caresses," as Stevenson says. The 
Apostles rejoiced in stripes, the martyrs in tortures, 
confessors in austerities, the saints in contempt and 
poverty. But in all they were guarded by the 
Church and ever kept the middle path where virtue 
dwells, and were preserved from the excess into 
which unguided man is so prone to fall. They are 
an antidote to a world that ever oscillates from one 
extreme to another, a world that is either too hard 
or too soft. Yesterday, in an excess of hardness, 
because the Church in her wisdom called to her aid 
the spirits of art and music and bound them to 
this service of joy, men with narrow vision, not 
understanding, broke organ and choir and sculp- 
ture and pictured glass, as if they feared lest 
man be too happy and at ease with God. To-day, 
such hardness of mind is vanishing and the world is 
falling into the opposite extreme — the unhealthy 
decadent softness of humanitarianism with its gos- 
pel of the avoidance of pain and sorrow as things 
evil. 

The Church on the contrary advances by the 
healthy facing of pain, teaches that it is the path 
of joy and holds that pain is a thing that must be 
and is a means of progress. Suffering is trial, and 
trial is to moral strength what physical exercise is 
to the muscles of the body. 

Our faith transmutes poverty, labor, and pain into 
[154] ' 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

means to help us on to perfection, and holds them 
before man as a mirror reflecting God's love. 

Ireland looked on this mirror, and love of God 
has ever been the talisman that transmuted all her 
sorrows and kept the sunshine of God's laughter 
lighting her heart. Some there are who have writ- 
ten of Ireland and shown her to their readers as a 
melancholy Ireland. Others have shown her as an 
island of dreamers, and others again as a volatile 
and changeable Ireland. These writers erred be- 
cause of their false standards. Coming from the 
mad rush of modern life, that mistakes feverish un- 
rest for happiness, and which finds joy in unending 
change where solid thought is impossible, they mis- 
took the eternal steadiness of Ireland for melan- 
choly. Because the Irish refused to burrow in the 
sloughs of materialism and held to their high ideals 
these writers describe them as unpractical dreamers, 
despite the fact that their history shows them to be 
among the most practical of the nations. They 
have dared to call changeable and volatile those 
whose tenacity and determination have upheld them 
while nations fell crashing in ruins about them. It 
is the old story of " Wherefore thou art inexcusable, 
oh man, because the things wherein thou judgest 
thou dost thyself." 

A restless, melancholy world, driven by those 
whose theories are often akin to madness, cannot 
judge Ireland. A world so full of misery that mul- 
titudes commit suicide to escape from it cannot un- 
derstand the content of Ireland. A world that is 

[155] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

speed-mad and covered with the gray dust of its 
whirlings cannot appreciate the glorious calm of 
Ireland. Ireland is a land of the most delightful 
calm and steadiness. This breathes in the very 
landscape. It is visible everywhere — in the fields 
and the cottages, on the seashore, by the ruins of 
the monasteries, under the shadows of the round 
towers, by the soft flowing streams, edged with 
flowered green, that slip quietly by the hedges and 
across fields and beneath roads to swell the river 
silently running to the sea. She is a land of pasture 
and tillage and clear, clean air; a land of little white 
roads that frolic from cottage to cottage, that play 
hide and seek amid the hedges, curve round lake and 
callow, hide in tree clusters, lose themselves in deep 
glens, or run wriggling up the curving sides of moun- 
tains and dive into the unknown. 

This spirit of contentment and calm flows out upon 
the land from the tabernacle, the center of life in 
each village and town. It rests by the hearth, it 
sweetens the labor of the fields, and makes smooth 
the path of the traveler. 

The simple and natural way in which the Irish turn 
to the tabernacle is sometimes astonishing to one not 
accustomed to it. One feast day I was kneeling, 
before dawn, in an Irish church. The town outside 
was silent in the cold and darkness of winter. Sud- 
denly, just as Mass was beginning, the sound of many 
feet was heard, and soon, seat after seat was filled 
with a hooded and cloaked crowd, who knelt and 
reverently followed the Holy Sacrifice. They were 

[156] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

a band of young folk returning frqm a ball, and the 
fact that they had spent the night in merry-making 
did not cause them to forget their duty to God. 
Before going home all came to the church to the 
Mass of the feast. 

"Incongruous," you murmur. No! not in Ire- 
land. Irish amusements are wholesome and Irish 
dances are clean and modest, healthy and hearty, so 
different from the sensuous slidings of some nations. 
God is with them in their pleasure as in their sor- 
rows, in their assemblies as in their loneliness. 
They take their amusements conscious of the pres- 
ence of God. Even when holiday-making Ireland 
does not forget, but carries the same spirit with her. 

High on the central plateau of Northern Clare 
is the holiday resort, Lisdoonvarn'a. It exists only 
for pleasure-seekers, and during the season its streets 
are thronged. The excursions by day and dance and 
song each evening, that make the hours fly, are not 
peculiar to Ireland. They are to be found in other 
lands, but what is peculiar to Ireland is the sanctifi- 
cation of this joyousness that is to be seen each morn- 
ing, and is characteristically Irish. 

In Lisdoonvarna, as everywhere else in Ireland, 
the church stands in the center. Each morning the 
first Mass begins at five o'clock, and after that 
Masses are celebrated every half-hour until ten 
o'clock. The church is full to overflowing at each 
of the Masses and great numbers go to Communion. 
At the early Masses are to be seen the ardent fisher- 
men and sportsmen with their rods and guns, hear- 

,[iS7] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

ing Mass before setting out on a long day's tramp 
over moor and mountain. 

" Himself " and " Herself " come gravely down 
to the later Masses clad in the dignity that befits 
their maturer years. They look with amused toler- 
ance at the vivacious energy that searches far afield 
for trout and pollock, rabbit and grouse. The joy 
that springs from a light conscience goes eddying 
from end to end of the plateau. 

At Lisdoonvarna, the stream of joyousness ripples 
openly in the sunshine, but it is to be found also 
flowing quietly and strongly beneath the dark clouds 
of adversity in places where it is so hidden beneath 
exterior privation that it can only be seen by eyes 
of faith, for its presence in such places is a marvel of 
faith. 

If we step off the plateau by the bluff shoulder of 
Moher and follow the roads that run south and east 
through the land we shall catch glimpses of it flash- 
ing from stony fields, where it drives back despair, 
and from solitary cabins by the roadside, where it 
banishes loneliness from souls tied by poverty. 

To the truth of this let a good old soul whom I 
found in a wayside cabin in Clare bear witness. 

Her husband had been dead for many years and 
all her children, yet the spirit of contentment rested 
upon her brow as she looked out upon the world 
from her half-door. I stood and spoke with her 
and learned her history. 

" So you are quite alone in the world? " I said. 

" Oh, no," she answered at once, and quite de- 
[158] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

cidedly, " oh, no, I've God and His Blessed Mother 
with me." 

The beads of the Blessed Mother lay on the cor- 
ner of a little table just inside the door, and beyond 
on the white wall a picture showed that St. Joseph 
was not forgotten. 

She was twin soul to the other Irish mother, 
whom I met on a Limerick hill-side in similar plight. 
Frail and old, she was toiling painfully up a steep 
hill carrying a bucket of water from a well at the 
foot. I took the bucket from her, and as we walked 
up the hill she told me a sad story of emigration and 
death, yet one gilded by marvelous contentment and 
resignation. She saw God's hand in all. 

As we drew near a cottage by the road-side I 
asked who lived there. 

" God and myself," was her answer. 

" What need of loneliness when I've Him to talk 
to? " was her answer to another question. 

Such souls are apt pupils in the school of Christ, 
and earth can teach them nothing. 

Irish joyousness finds full power of expression in 
the language of these people. The tongue of the 
Gael is the shrine of national memories, and irrep- 
arable loss has been inflicted upon generations of 
Irish because they were deprived of it. 

Ireland possessed a splendid literature, and, de- 
spite the ravages of invaders, many traces of it re- 
main. He who would study the history of the 
Celtic nations of Europe must go to Irish manu- 
scripts. As Darmesteter says: 

[159] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

" Ireland has the peculiar privilege of a history 
continuous from the earliest centuries of our era to 
the present day. She has preserved in the infinite 
wealth of her literature a complete and faithful pic- 
ture of the ancient civilization of the Celts. Irish 
literature is therefore the key that opens the Celtic 
world." 

National language is the natural vehicle for the 
expression of the thought and the ideals of a people, 
and no substitute can be found for it. To speak in 
a foreign tongue brings many disadvantages, not the 
least of which is the sense of inferiority felt by him 
who is conscious of defects in pronunciation and 
idiom. 

This was the reason of the answer of the Galway 
man to the English member of Parliament who 
vainly endeavored to make him speak English. 

" Ah, if we talked English," said he, " you would 
be a wiser man than I; in Irish it is not that way 
the story is ! " 

And as the thought and ideals of Ireland have 
ever been deeply religious, the suppression of the 
language embodying these struck a blow, not only 
at national sentiment, but at national religion. 

Who so swift and clean of speech as the Irish? 

The so-called " Irish bull " is the outcome of the 
quick flash of mind that expresses one idea by ap- 
posite and opposite illustrations. 

In the year 1834, in spite of fierce legislation 
against it, there were 3,000,000 people who used the 

[160] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

Irish language as their mother tongue. But famine 
and pestilence, emigration and the penal laws 
worked against and the English tongue took its place 
save where it languished in the south and west. 

Priceless manuscripts in great numbers were de- 
stroyed, and a generation arose in ignorance and 
knew not what they had lost, till in the year 1893 
by the Gaelic revival lovers of Ireland began to fan 
the spark almost buried under cold ashes. Already 
a bright flame is burning, prophetic of the day that 
is coming when the joyously Catholic speech of the 
Gael shall hold its rightful position. 

Side by side with the Irish language runs the 
stream of Irish music and song. Song sprang nat- 
urally to the lips of the Irish, and the odes of the 
bards were memorized by the people and sung by 
them at their gatherings. 

" It is no exaggeration to say," says Douglas 
Hyde, " that by no people was poetry so cultivated 
and so remunerated as in Ireland. There were six- 
teen grades of bards, and each grade had its own 
peculiar metre, of which the Irish had over three 
hundred." 

Life without music and song would be impossible 
for such a people, and they brought both to a pitch 
of perfection rarely attained in any nation. Ireland 
is the only country that has a musical instrument as 
the national emblem. 

Of the music of Ireland, Dr. Ernest Walker says: 

" Few musicians have been found to question the 

[161] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

assertion that Irish folk music is, on the whole, the 
finest that exists. It ranges, with wonderful ease, 
over the whole gamut of human emotion, from the 
cradle to the battlefield, and is unsurpassed in 
poetical and artistic charm. If musical composition 
meant nothing mere than tunes sixteen bars long, 
Ireland could claim some of the very greatest com- 
posers that ever lived; for in their miniature form, 
the best Irish folk tunes are gems of absolutely flaw- 
less luster. For sheer beauty of melody, the works 
of Mozart, Schubert, and the Irish composers form 
a triad that is unchallenged in the whole range of 
the art." 

And Cambrensis, speaking of their skill with musi- 
cal instruments, says: 

" The attention of these people to musical instru- 
ments is worthy of praise, in which their skill is be- 
yond comparison superior to other people. The 
modulation is not slow and solemn, but rapid and 
precipitate; it is extraordinary in such rapidity of 
the fingers how the musical proportions are pre- 
served." 

Her joyousness swept across Ireland in an un- 
rivalled outburst of music and song. The whole na- 
tion, like a gigantic harp, thrilled with the praise 
of God as the Irish exultantly lifted up their hearts 
to Him " in hymns and canticles singing and making 
melody in their hearts to the Lord." 

So it ever is with man when his heart is at rest 
and his mind steadied by definite purpose. Joy 

[162] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

sings in the heart of the goldseeker, even though 
his path crawls across the Chilcoot Pass and races 
at lightning speed over the creamy rush of White 
Horse Canon, with death at every oar tip. The 
lure of the gold and the power of its possession 
urges him onward; buoyed by the thought of riches 
ahead he struggles forward though death watch 
every step. 

The world looks on in admiration when it sees 
him laboriously burning the frozen earth and brav- 
ing climatic conditions that render life almost im- 
possible, and judges that the prize is worth the risk, 
because it is the price that he is content to pay for 
a lifetime to be spent in the enjoyment of all that 
this world gives to the possessor of riches. 

So too is it with the Irish. Not for earthly gold, 
but for heavenly gold this people presses on, break- 
ing all difficulties beneath their feet, with hearts and 
eyes fast fixed on the prize ahead. 

They travel through life with the Beatitudes set 
as signposts and they confidently steer their course 
by them. Thus it is that the meaning of poverty 
and tribulation and pain — in short, the meaning of 
life, a mystery to worldlings — is quite clear to 
them. With them " Delight has taken Pain to her 
heart," and they understand fully that the sacred 
office of pain is to purify the gold of the heart from 
the dross of earth. 

Speaking of the outlook of the Irish people upon 
life, an English Protestant writer, Harold Begbie, 
says : 

[■6 3 ] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

" It seemed to me that these hard-working, 
simple-living, family-loving, and most warm-hearted 
people had done what we in England have largely 
failed to do even in our villages, to wit, solved the 
problem of life. The charm which every traveler 
feels in the South of Ireland is the character of the 
Irish people, and my investigations forced me to the 
judgment that this character is the culture of Irish 
Catholicism." 

Ireland is a proof, that the whole world may see, 
of the joy of life and sanity of outlook that spring 
from the Catholic Church, the Church of the taber- 
nacle. 

The sacramental Presence of God sets the whole 
nation moving joyously around Him, and persecu- 
tion and trial but strengthen this content, because 
suffered for Him who assures them that blessed are 
the poor, the oppressed, and the persecuted. 

The tabernacle of the divine Presence gives Ire- 
land immovable strength and confidence; from it 
also she has been nourished by the life of nations. 
Ireland, intensely loyal, rejoices in all times and 
circumstances in the Presence of her King, — " of 
Thee shall I continually sing, and I am become unto 
many as a wonder, but Thou art a strong helper, my 
lips shall greatly rejoice when I shall sing to Thee." 

They look upon all earthly ills as coin for gaining 
sanctity. They have read aright the law of suffer- 
ing and know that it is part of the law of life; that 
the crown of thorns was the halo that Christ wore 

[164] 



IRISH JOYOUSNESS 

on earth and showed to the world when dying cruci- 
fied. Ireland realizes what A Kempis teaches, " the 
cross is strength and joy of spirit and the price of a 
kingdom." 

The Catholic Faith is the fountain of Irish joyous- 
ness, a fountain whence gushes the living water of 
life in a stream so strong that it bursts through the 
misery of life and transmutes it till it gleams as a 
heavenly gift in a spray of golden rain. 



[165] 



CHAPTER XV 

TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

TTISTORIANS have often painted glowing pic- 
-*■ -■- tures of periods that were considered to be 
times of triumph in the lives of nations. Yet too 
often when tried by the testing fingers of time the 
triumph proved to be but a simulacrum. 

The passage of the centuries places all in proper 
perspective, and shows that national success is not to 
be measured by commercial greatness, or extent of 
territory, or the subjugation of peoples. These may 
exist and dazzle the vision of those whose horizon 
is narrowed within the confines of one generation, 
while the soul of the nation is sinking to death. A 
nation, no less than an individual, cannot find true 
greatness in material acquisitions, but must attain it 
by rectitude of thought and act. 

Earth is full of the mystery of nations who at- 
tained worldly greatness, yet have vanished and left 
not even a name behind them. This mystery meets 
the traveler in the buried cities of the forests of 
Yucatan with their tree-pierced marble floors; it 
astounds him among African savages and on Asian 
hill-sides. 

And the recorded history of nations proves again 
and again that the nation who barters her soul for 
conquest and power is a nation doomed. 

[166] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

As we turn the pages of the early history of man- 
kind, and ponder wonderingly on the unerring sure- 
ness that with the certainty almost of a natural law 
ends the career of the nation that offends, we see 
one remarkable instance of real triumph achieved 
through devotion to high ideals. From the dawn 
of creation across the generations we can trace the 
splendid record of the Jewish nation, the Chosen 
People of God, who, despite weakness and exile and 
oppression, conquered all while they remained faith- 
ful. 

Egypt with her subtle, seductive civilization strove 
strenuously to crush them. She sank and died, leav- 
ing naught behind but a few stones, half hidden in 
the drifting desert sands, and the Chosen People 
lived on. 

Assyria, brutal in her might and arrogance, and 
drunk with the lust of power, marched forward in 
the path of passion, and sprang to annihilate them. 
The setting sun glittered on silver spear, and 
shone on golden helmet; the air was filled with the 
thunder of marching squadrons and the trampling 
of the war-horse. The rising sun looked down 
on a silent plain and a silent army. Spear and 
helmet, horse and rider, lay low in the dust. God 
had intervened to protect His Chosen People, and 
that mighty host was stricken back to its elemental 
clay. 

Babylon, proud and degraded, stretched forth im- 
pious hands to slay them. The earth was filled with 
the noise of her armies; but God told the faithful 

[167] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

Jews to fear not, " for the owl shall hoot in their 
houses and wild beasts shall rest there." 

The greatest civilization and power of them all, 
resplendent Greece, arose — Greece, of whom the 
Sacred Scriptures said, " She slew the kings of the 
earth, she went through even to the ends of the 
earth, and took the spoils of many nations, and the 
earth was silent before the Macedonian soldier." 
This earth-conquering nation marched with her 
hitherto invincible hosts against the Jews, who, with 
the valiant Judas Maccabceus at their head, stood, 
a tiny handful, awaiting the onslaught. " There is 
no difference in the sight of God," fearlessly cried 
the Jewish leader, " to deliver with a great multitude 
or with a small company, for the success of war is 
not in the multitude of the army, but strength cometh 
from Heaven; the Lord Himself will overthrow 
them." And even so did it happen. As a great 
tidal wave that, sweeping with resistless rush over 
leagues of ocean, crashes like a green mountain 
against an iron coast, and is flung back baffled and 
broken in seething confusion, so that great earthly 
force fell back, defeated and dismayed, before the 
invulnerable power that guarded the Chosen Peo- 
ple. 

They stood unmoved by all assaults, relying on the 
word of their prophet, who, speaking of the seem- 
ingly overwhelming attack of the Assyrians, had as- 
sured them — " Fear not, for with him is an arm 
of flesh; with us the Lord our God fighteth for us." 

[168] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

Ages after the passing of the kingdom of the 
Jews, the same spirit animated the Irish king, Brian 
Boru, who, when told of the threats of the powerful 
Danish invader, asked " Hath the king in his vain 
boasting said ' if it please God'? No? Then we 
need not fear him." 

This is the spirit that is the secret of true great- 
ness and of national success — a spirit that keeps a 
nation in accord with the laws of the Creator, and 
sends it forward to true triumph, the fulfillment of 
its destiny. 

The Jews, vivified by this, moved forward across 
the ages, while their enemies fell by the wayside, 
lost in the darkness of materialism. But the Jews, 
alas ! missed the fullness of the triumph that was to 
have been theirs, because they fell from the splendid 
path that they trod while true to their destiny. 

They were strong in the revelation of the coming 
of the Redeemer; but as the ages rolled by without 
the fulfillment of the promise, the mists of earth 
blinded them, and when at last the Savior came 
and stood among them, they did not know Him. 
They had so fallen, that in their blindness they came 
to measure things by earthly standards, and looked 
for a powerful leader who in his might would make 
them conquerors of all. They could not realize that 
Christ was mighty in His poverty, powerful in His 
meekness, conqueror in His cross. 

That revelation came to Ireland, and she fell into 
no such error. She recognized the Savior of men 

[169] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

when He came to her, and has ever since been faith- 
ful to Him. Therefore is it that her history is one 
of ever-increasing triumph. 

The Spirit of Pentecost runs full in her veins, and 
to this spirit is to be traced Ireland's triumph. Be- 
cause of this, though old in sorrow and experience, 
she is young in vigor of life and supernal hope. 
Her triumph is founded on her fidelity to Catholic 
ideals, and her history shows generation after gen- 
eration fighting valiantly to uphold these. 

Many count it among her glories that her sons are 
a strong power in all lands; that they are high in 
the council-chambers of the nations; that they are 
princes of commerce and industry; that they are pre- 
eminent on the battlefield. And they are right in 
doing so, for the splendid history of her sons among 
the nations is one of Ireland's glories. Marshals in 
France, Ministers in Spain, Ambassadors in every 
court of Europe — they have in great measure writ- 
ten the history of the Old World. 

In the forming of the New World they are even 
more prominent. Nearly half of the Presidents of 
the United States were of Celtic blood, and the Irish 
were the foremost in the American struggle for 
liberty. Custis, the adopted son of Washington, 
writes: 

" The aid we received from Irish Catholics in 
the struggle for independence was essential to our 
ultimate success. In the War of Independence Ire- 
land furnished one hundred men for every single 

[170] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

man furnished by any other foreign nation; let 
America bear eternal gratitude to Irishmen." 

President Roosevelt speaks of their influence in 
America thus : 

" In every walk of life men of Irish blood have 
stood and now stand preeminent as statesmen and 
soldiers, on the bench, at the bar, and in business. 
They are doing their full share toward the artistic 
and literary development of the country." 

Ireland is proud of the part her sons have taken 
in building up the greatest democracy on earth, but 
she is prouder still of the fact that all this earthly 
success was solidified by the spirit of faith. 
Worldly success did not turn them from God. El- 
oquent testimony of this is given by the great Amer- 
ican, Dr. O. A. Brownson, in the following words: 

" Here the Irish and their descendants are by all 
odds and under every point of view the purest, the 
best, and the most trustworthy of the American peo- 
ple." 

To be proud of their worldly success and to meas- 
ure their progress by it would be to repeat the error 
which, as we have seen, brings death to nations. 
Rome counted this as a sign of greatness, and she 
fell, till her people were human wolves ravenous for 
slaughter. So low did she fall, that her idea of 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

the greatest national triumph possible was a long 
line of captives led through the streets, tied for 
butchery, while captive kings walked before the 
chariot of the victor, and were dropped to strangula- 
tion or starvation under the grating of the Mamer- 
tine pit, while the people revelled in the blood-reek 
of the amphitheater. 

Therefore, we do not point to the worldly success 
of her sons as a mark of Ireland's triumph, for to do 
so would be to follow the error of ancient Rome and 
others who based a nation's greatness upon things 
that scarce touch at all the real life of a people. 
All the power and wealth and fame acquired by 
her sons would be but failure if accompanied by 
loss of Catholic faith, for it would mean the deser- 
tion of the service of God for that of Mammon. It 
is precisely because Ireland recognizes this that she 
possesses her undying vitality. She has ever 
guarded her faith and made it her first care to pro- 
vide for the fitting worship of God. 

The triumph of the Irish lies in the fact that, 
while making such worldly progress, while display- 
ing such rare patriotic energy, they have vivified all 
by their faith, and measured all success by the light 
of faith. Maguire in " Irish in America " shows 
this very clearly : 

" What Ireland has done for the American 
Church every bishop and every priest can tell. 
Throughout the vast extent of the Union, there is 
scarcely a church, a college, an academy, a school, a 

[172] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

religious or charitable institution, an asylum, a hos- 
pital, or a refuge, in which the piety, the learning, 
the zeal, the self-sacrifice of the Irish, of the priest 
or the professor, of the Sisters of every Order and 
Congregation, are not to be traced: there is scarcely 
an ecclesiastical seminary for English-speaking stu- 
dents in which the great majority of those now pre- 
paring for the service of the sanctuary do not belong, 
if not by birth, at least by blood, to that historic 
land to which the grateful Church of past ages ac- 
corded the proud title — ' Insula Sanctorum.' " 

Forty years ago an American writer could say: 

" This vast continent affords a most striking proof 
of what religion means to the Irish people. Count 
the colleges, schools, academies, hospitals, and 
asylums of charity that have sprung up as if by magic 
all over the land, and tell me is there anything that 
speaks more eloquently to the heart than the faith 
that inspired such unselfish devotion. Religion as a 
name is useless; it is only precious for what it enables 
us to be and to do. It is religion that has made the 
Irish people what they are. It has made them just 
towards others, lovers of order and progress, firm in 
the support of just authority, and courageous in re- 
sistance to lawless tyranny. No State can thrive 
without such virtuous citizens, and no country can be 
hopelessly lost that has the happiness of possessing 
them." 

And what Ireland has done in America she is 
[173] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

doing in every quarter of the globe. It would seem 
that her destiny is to diffuse the Catholic Faith 
through the whole of the English-speaking nations. 
The Gael is the salt that gives savor to the English 
world. Wherever her sons go they build churches 
and convents and orphanages and schools, in the face 
of a corrupt world, and support them by severe self- 
sacrifice. 

To-day their influence is so great that the words 
of Tertullian, spoken to the Romans of the Catholics 
in the third century, apply with equal force to Irish 
Catholics : 

" The liberty which we have secured to worship 
in freedom is but of yesterday, and already we fill 
your towns, your councils, your armies, and your 
parliaments. You have persecuted us for centuries, 
and behold, we spring up from the blood of our 
martyrs in numbers increased a hundredfold." 

The Catholic Faith, as potent in the twentieth 
as in the third century, is the secret of Ireland's 
triumph, and it will be the secret of her final glory. 
This has not made her less loyal to worldly author- 
ity, but on the contrary has made her loyal with a 
selfless loyalty so rare that it can be understood only 
by those who know the Catholic heart of Ireland. 
Whenever danger threatened the Empire, her sons 
sprang forward to repel it. To-day 300,000 stand 
in the fighting line, and beside them is a mighty 
host of nearly a million men of Irish blood. In 

[174] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

every land her sons are prominent as nation-builders, 
and this is but a necessary resultant of their ideals. 
Those who work well for God always work well for 
man. 

And as in the case of the Catholics of the cata- 
combs, of whom Tertullian says that they sprang 
to strength from the blood of the martyrs, so too 
Ireland sprang to strength and triumph from the 
blood of her martyrs. Ireland's blood has been 
sprinkled in benediction upon a dying world, and 
it has fructified a thousandfold. 

God in His mysterious wisdom permitted the na- 
tion to be flung bleeding to the four corners of the 
earth. In a pitiful stream the exiles crossed the 
waterways of the world, seeking that which was 
denied them at home. With them they brought 
their priest and their God. As the banished Israel- 
ites, wandering in sorrow away from the Holy 
Land, clung to the Ark of the Covenant as the 
center of their life, so did the banished Irish, wan- 
dering in sorrow from their holy land, cling firmly to 
that which was greater than the Ark of the Cov- 
enant — the tabernacle, wherein God is enthroned. 
And fortified by the strength of nations, the exiles 
planted the Cross of Christ in Arctic ice and tropic 
sun, on the rolling prairies and. pampas of America, 
amid the sands of Africa, by the mountains of Asia, 
and on the long, low plains of Australia. 

The dispersion of the Irish is one of the wonders 
of the world. We do not recall it to arouse bitter- 
ness — God forbid ! No, we look back to it as one 

[175] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

of the glories of our Church, just as we look back 
to the martyrs of the Roman arena, martyrs who 
saved their country and their oppressors by their 
fidelity to our Catholic Faith. The marvelous re- 
sults of this dispersion form one of the brightest 
pages in the history of Ireland, and one of the grand- 
est monuments to the undying vitality and eternal 
strength of the Catholic Church. 

The effects of this dispersion on the history of 
the world and the history of the Church are beyond 
computation. They are world-wide in extent and 
supernatural in power. Truly it is a case of God 
using the weak ones of the earth to confound the 
strong. We see a stream of broken-hearted, pov- 
erty-stricken exiles fleeing from their country, as 
helpless from a worldly standpoint as Christ's first 
apostles. Yet look at the result. Strong with the 
strength of God, these poor stricken ones have built 
numberless homes for their Creator — wayside 
churches, mighty cathedrals, seminaries, convents, 
orphanages, and schools — all centers whence ra- 
diate the life of the grace of God, vivifying and up- 
lifting every land. 

The extent of this mighty force is most manifest 
when the Irish world turns in an outburst of love 
to celebrate the feast day of St. Patrick. Let us 
watch their whole-hearted devotion to him as like a 
great wave it goes sweeping around the earth. 

In Ireland itself at the dawn of day the whole 
land is astir, vibrating with the light of faith. In 
the city streets, along the boreens and roads, down 

[176] 



TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

the glens by plain and mountain, all are hastening 
to kneel round the altar of their God. Across the 
broad bosom of the heather-covered bogland they 
make their way to the little white chapel on the hill- 
side. Country church and city cathedral alike are 
crowded, and the whole land echoes to the prayer 
of millions — a mighty chorus of love sounding be- 
fore God's earthly throne. 

Follow the sun around the globe, and watch 
Greater Ireland beyond the seas keeping the feast. 
Follow it as it swings across the broad Atlantic, until 
the morning sun lights up the bold headlands of 
the Western world. High over the waves, with its 
brilliant beacon light of welcome, towers the famous 
monument of Liberty. But when we land in the 
city of New York, we find that there is another 
monument of Liberty. The city is dominated by 
a far higher and grander monument — a monument 
telling of true liberty. Erected to the liberty of 
God, it is a mighty monument worthy of the mighty 
continent on which it stands; a monument built by 
the efforts of the poor exiled Irish. What is this 
monument? It is a glorious white marble pile, with 
twin spires flinging the cross of Christ high in the 
heavens — the stately cathedral well worthy of its 
name, the Cathedral of St. Patrick. 

In the early morning on St. Patrick's Day, we 
hear the rush of hurrying feet, and crowds — 
shamrock on breast — fill this immense cathedral. 
The organ thunders with triumphant peal, and the 
strains of the well-remembered hymn " Hail, glori- 

[i77] 



THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

ous St. Patrick " fill the air, reviving memories of 
bogland and mountain glen, of cornfield and green 
boreen, of past St. Patrick's days; and the exile, 
kneeling with closed eyes and streaming cheeks, 
pours forth his soul in prayer of thanksgiving to 
God. 

And as the westward-rushing sun drives back the 
night, everywhere it is the same. In railroad car 
and on the broad bosom of the mighty riv-er, in 
populous town and lonely forest, frozen north and 
tropic south, we see the Irish hastening in their mil- 
lions to pay homage to God and to their saint. 

Across the continent we sweep on the wings of the 
dawn, and as it lights up the blue waters of the 
Pacific, St. Patrick's Day has dawned among the 
wondrously beautiful islands that lie sleeping under 
the Southern Cross. 

Beneath the shadow of the snow-capped moun- 
tain chains of New Zealand, from the lonely gully 
and the primeval forest, march the exiles. 
Throughout the whole of the Dominion they gather 
in the splendid cathedrals and churches they have 
built, glorious witnesses to the vitality of their faith. 
There at the very ends of the earth they sing the 
praises of St. Patrick. 

Across the Tasman sea we swing, and in the dawn 
the long spreading plains of Australia lie before 
us, dotted with hurrying crowds. At its southern 
point, a great cathedral towers high above Mel- 
bourne, the queen city of the south. This cathe- 

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TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

dral is the first object to catch the eye of the heart- 
sore exile as his ship glides towards the shore, and 
the sound of its name as it passes from lip to lip 
causes his heart to beat with joy, and lifts the feeling 
of exile and strangeness that oppresses him, for it is 
the grand old familiar name — St. Patrick. 

Look to the north ! Nestling amid the yellow 
corn, half hidden by the bending eucalyptus; high 
upon the towering mountains; standing in the lowly 
valleys — everywhere, — church after church, con- 
vent after convent, school after school, meet our 
gaze, and among them, strong as the adamantine 
hills, stand the guardian cathedrals. 

On the bold headland that guards the beautiful 
harbor of Sydney, looking seawards, stands the 
premier seminary of the lands of the Southern Cross 
— St. Patrick's, Manly. 

As we look, from Torres to Tasmania, the bells 
ring out to welcome the day, and in their hundreds 
of thousands the Irish gather round the tabernacles. 

Out across the continent to the land of gold — 
Western Australia, it is the same story. Across 
Asia, across Africa — everywhere, we find an un- 
ending succession of altars erected by the Irish to 
enthrone God among men, and each surrounded by 
an adoring multitude. A marvelous multiplication 
of the Mass Rock! 

For twenty-four hours the earth has echoed with 
unceasing prayer to God through St. Patrick! The 
whole round world stood in amazement and won- 

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THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

dered at the chorus of praise that rang from east to 
west and from pole to pole, for on St. Patrick's Day 
the tramp of the Irish shakes the world! 

With her glorious past, and a present of such mag- 
nificent strength and promise, who dare deny that 
this prediction of Ireland's future be too bold: 

" Many a race 
Shrivelling in sunshine of its prosperous years, 
Shall cease from faith, and, shamed though shameless, sink 
Back to its native clay ; but over thine 
God shall extend the shadow of His Hand, 
And through the night of centuries teach to her 
In woe that song which, when the nations wake, 
Shall sound their glad deliverance; 

But nations far, in undiscovered seas, 
Her stately progeny, while ages fleet, 
Shall wear the kingly ermine of her Faith, 
Fleece uncorrupted of the Immaculate Lamb, 
Forever; lands remote shall raise to God 
Her fanes; and eagle-nurturing isles hold fast 
Her hermit cells: thy nation shall not walk 
Accordant with the Gentiles of this world, 
But as a race elect sustain the Crown 
Or bear the Cross." 

Nearly 300 years ago a Nuncio sent to Ireland by 
the Pope wrote these words to Rome : 

" Ireland may yet become an outwork of the Faith 
to Europe and its herald to America." 

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TRIUMPH OF IRELAND 

Could that Nuncio have seen what we have just 
seen on our journey round the world, he would write 
to-day : 

" Ireland has become an outwork of the Faith 
to Europe, has been and is its herald to America, 
and Africa, and Asia, and Australia — aye, to the 
whole world." 

Whether kneeling in little mountain chapel at 
home, or in splendid cathedral abroad, whether liv- 
ing in peace in his cottage, or defending his country 
at the battle-front, the Irishman fearlessly stands be- 
fore the whole world, and unhesitatingly proclaims 
that his greatest pride and his greatest glory is the 
heritage that was given him by St. Patrick — our 
Holy Catholic Faith. 

And this triumph is hers because of her recogni- 
tion and adoration of Emmanuel, the Sacred Pres- 
ence. The child of Erin ever moves in the world 
lit by the light of the tabernacle. To him the tab- 
ernacle is everything. It is the crib; the Holy 
House of Nazareth; the Holy Land where Christ 
does good; the Supper Room; the Calvary whereon 
He is sacrificed for us. Scarce is he born than he is 
carried to the tabernacle to be enrolled as a subject 
of God by the sign of baptism. Before it, at the 
altar, he kneels to receive from his bishop the soldier 
sign of confirmation; at the same altar he receives 
holy communion. Beneath the hallowed roof that 
shelters it he comes from the wild surge of earth 

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THE SOUL OF IRELAND 

with Its passion and pride, and sin and sorrow. It 
lifts the shadow of sin from him in the comforting 
confessional. When he finds a twin soul, he comes 
to the tabernacle with her, and Christ takes the two 
pure hearts in His Sacred Hands and molds them 
until the twain are one in the sacrament of matri- 
mony. And when life is ended, he is carried to the 
tabernacle to be laid before God for the last time. 

Here we have the reason why Ireland is Ireland, 
and why Ireland will always be Ireland. She has 
triumphed because she has fought on in the path 
St. Patrick has marked out for her ! It is a path 
often rugged and painful, a path crimsoned by the 
blood and watered by the tears of countless genera- 
tions of Irish hearts; but a path that has never 
swerved from the straight line of honor and holi- 
ness; a path that leads straight to where St. Patrick 
and greatest Ireland stand, rejoicing in the fruition 
of their triumph. 



THE END 



Printed in the United States of America. 



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